Mobile strategy the reason behind AMD CEO ousting

Jos

Posts: 3,073   +97
Staff

The departure of AMD’s chief executive came as quite a surprise for many, as Meyer abruptly announced the decision on Monday with no detailed explanation from either him or the company. Even more so as AMD started to show a slow but steady turnaround, with its graphics processors business doing well and its first Fusion APU products debuting this month. But apparently the split between AMD and his CEO had been simmering for some time.

Several news outfits are reporting that Meyer's hesitation, particularly towards tablets, may have cost him the job, and that the company’s board pressured him into resignation because they didn't feel like Meyer was taking them down the road they wanted to be on… the road towards tablets and smartphones.


Meyer had made his position very clear last year, when he openly said that the tablet market was not a priority because it wasn’t big enough to justify the R&D spending. His point was arguably a rational one but it’s that lack of vision that has them running behind rivals for a piece of the market later on. The company practically conceded the netbook market to Intel by offering no competing chip, and in 2008-2009 when it appeared well situated to make a foray into smartphones, it sold its Xilleon technology to BroadCom and Imageon to cell phone chip giant Qualcomm.

Meyer deserves some credit for taking the reigns in difficult times and stabilizing the company, something which the board themselves recognized in their statement. AMD might even finally gain some traction just above the netbook segment now that several big-name manufacturers have announced their plans to support the Brazos platform, but it seems like his vision just wasn’t aligned with the company’s board of directors.

Permalink to story.

 
We need this company in order to be able to have fair competition and products at fair prices. Otherwise dual cores may become expensive as hell. Wait...I think Intel already overprices those too.
 
Sadly even if they hired Jesus as their new CEO the likely wont have anything to compete with sandy bridge.
 
Princeton said:
Sadly even if they hired Jesus as their new CEO the likely wont have anything to compete with sandy bridge.

Hire Jesus as the engineer instead. Surely the Son of God can whip out a few Intel crushing chips in no time flat, right?
 
We need this company in order to be able to have fair competition and products at fair prices. Otherwise dual cores may become expensive as hell. Wait...I think Intel already overprices those too.

Yep, not likely that Sandy Bridge prices would be where they are without the competition from AMD.
 
Mizzou said:
We need this company in order to be able to have fair competition and products at fair prices. Otherwise dual cores may become expensive as hell. Wait...I think Intel already overprices those too.

Yep, not likely that Sandy Bridge prices would be where they are without the competition from AMD.

You are dam rigth folks!!
 
Mizzou said:
We need this company in order to be able to have fair competition and products at fair prices. Otherwise dual cores may become expensive as hell. Wait...I think Intel already overprices those too.

Yep, not likely that Sandy Bridge prices would be where they are without the competition from AMD.

Do you honestly think that Intel cares about AMD competition? Yah your probably right. But that doesn't get rid of the fact that AMD doesn't have and probably wont have cpus to compete with sandy bridge.
 
Princeton said:
Sadly even if they hired Jesus as their new CEO the likely wont have anything to compete with sandy bridge.

I'd rather Jesus just use his powers to banish all the AMD and Intel fanboys to Purgatory for three days or so.
 
DokkRokken said:
Princeton said:
Sadly even if they hired Jesus as their new CEO the likely wont have anything to compete with sandy bridge.

I'd rather Jesus just use his powers to banish all the AMD and Intel fanboys to Purgatory for three days or so.

No Rokken. There is one much worse. A common enemy we all share. An enemy so evil it would even make Jesus scream.......

Apple.
 
DokkRokken said:
Princeton said:
Sadly even if they hired Jesus as their new CEO the likely wont have anything to compete with sandy bridge.

I'd rather Jesus just use his powers to banish all the AMD and Intel fanboys to Purgatory for three days or so.

Wow, a person with some sensibility. Amazing.
 
sarcasm said:
DokkRokken said:
Princeton said:
Sadly even if they hired Jesus as their new CEO the likely wont have anything to compete with sandy bridge.

I'd rather Jesus just use his powers to banish all the AMD and Intel fanboys to Purgatory for three days or so.

Wow, a person with some sensibility. Amazing.

Actually my idea is terrible. What the hell would people have to talk about if the fanboys left?! :p
 
As good as Sandy Bridge is, I think bulldozer will give it a run for its money (IF global foundries can actually produce bulldozer). It's going to close a lot of gaps between intel and amd--both will have 8 mb L3 cache, AMD will have its own version of hyper threading, and it will be on the 32 nm process.

However, if AMD's bulldozer doesn't bring the performance of at least an Nehalem i7, I think they are in big trouble. Intel's Ivy Bridge won't be far behind.
 
If AMD is to survive they would do well to build chipsets that would flawlessly run OSX. If they do that that would make them a real force to be reckoned with. If we could build our own windows or osx boxes to our own specs this would be a true marketing triumph for AMD.
 
It sure is a sign of a lack of vision when you don't follow Apple's lead like everyone else ... the tablet market is thoroughly sewn up by Apple; maybe instead of playing second best, companies like Samsung (and AMD apparently) should come up with their OWN innovative products?
 
AMD fires its CEO just months before it launches Bulldozer. That certainly does not bode well for the company that's trying to close a substantial performance gap with Intel. AMD is definitely hoping that Bulldozer will bring help the company achieve parity with Intel's top of the line CPUs or at the very least allow it to regain competitiveness in the segment. If Bulldozer fails to deliver, then whether the competition is Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge, for AMD it will simply be "A Bridge Too Far" as the title of the old World War II movie goes.
 
As good as Sandy Bridge is, I think bulldozer will give it a run for its money (IF global foundries can actually produce bulldozer). It's going to close a lot of gaps between intel and amd--both will have 8 mb L3 cache, AMD will have its own version of hyper threading, and it will be on the 32 nm process.

However, if AMD's bulldozer doesn't bring the performance of at least an Nehalem i7, I think they are in big trouble. Intel's Ivy Bridge won't be far behind.

This from an article on TechPowerUp yesterday, Bulldozer 50% Faster than Core i7 and Phenom II. Will just have to wait and see if there is any substance to this claim.
 
Back