AMD Loses $1.2 Billion and Its CEO 373
Barence writes to mention that after seeing almost $1.2 billion in second quarter losses, AMD's CEO has resigned. Stepping up to fill his shoes will be Dirk Meyer, previous company president and COO. "Only two years ago, the company held a processor performance lead and was making serious inroads into Intel's market. However, AMD failed to keep pace with Intel's Core technology, and it once again surrendered its performance crown at the dawn of the multicore era. Those problems were exacerbated by the bungled launch of the Barcelona processors, which prompted Ruiz to make a frank public apology last December."
i hope they keep up (Score:5, Insightful)
The last thing i want is an intel/ms only world. Bad enough MIPS and PPC have gone the way of the dodo more or less. AMD is the last bastion of creativity in CPUs.
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Informative)
I don't want to see AMD fail either, but remember: we'll always have ARM.
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Funny)
They can pry my DS from my cold, dead hands!
EU Antitrust Charges. Don't blame the Victim. (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank heavens for representative government that works better than our own [slashdot.org]. The EU has been watching Intel for more than 8 years and already has outstanding charges that Intel thwarted AMD sales by selling at a loss. We've all seen how they crushed OLPC. Good for the EU for doing something, we can only hope it's not too little too late given worsening economic conditions.
The story's "AMD sucks" slant is puzzling. Advantages come and go, but AMD has almost always been better for number crunching since 2000. They also have had significantly better interconnects and architecture for multi core processors. It's like blaming the victim.
Another factor in this sad story is the Vista failure [slashdot.org] which has hurt all hardware sales. In the last year or so, we've seen spectacular bargains like $500 and less dual core laptops on clearance and the collapse of CompUSA and other big box stores. AMD will suffer more in this downturn because it comes as they were gaining share.
Mod Twitter's comment UP. (Score:3, Interesting)
However, he should not be moderated down when he makes very sensible comments. If Intel is making money because of anti-competitive prices [theinquirer.net], then Intel should be sued by the EU, as the story says.
The biggest reason why AMD [google.com] and Nvidia [google.com] are near year-to-date lows is because of competition expected from new GPU products from Intel.
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Are you seriously trying to blame Twitter for Vista's poor reputation? Take a look outside Slashdot for a second;
Google search:
Results 1 - 10 of about 9,170 for "Vista failure". (0.18 seconds)
Do you really think Twitter is that influential?
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Now if you search correctly with quotes...
Google Search:
Results 1 - 10 of about 4,570 for "linux failure"
Not that either search means much. But lets at least compare similar items.
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Exactly, and the cellphone market dwarfs the PC market -- and the gulf is only going to get larger in the long run.
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And what, exactly, did all that accomplish?
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to worry. History (or the Slashdot version of it at least) will remember AMD being taken down by the evil Intel, and things like AMD having taken to lead in the desktop CPU market or the fact that buying ATI was a phenomenal mistake will be ignored.
Companies don't die, they're just taken down viciously by companies we don't like.
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Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Funny)
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Long live Transmeta.
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:4, Interesting)
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PPC has gone the way of the dodo more or less
PPC is everywhere. Wii, PS3, XBOX360. IBM's big iron is all PPC. Power5, Power6
If you want a desktop PC look at what YellowDog Linux [terrasoftsolutions.com] has to offer. Here's all of the hardware they support [terrasoftsolutions.com].
Hell even look under the Wiki entry for PPC [wikipedia.org] will show all the current Power/RISC hardware, PPC being one such implementation.
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking purely as a cynic, Intel were dragged into having to innovate by somebody (AMD) producing something better and also instruction-set compatible. That meant they had to invest some money in R&D rather than continuing to push their fairly abysmal P4 line because there was no choice. The emergence of AMD as a serious contender is what has done the industry good in this instance.
I'm sure that without actual competition, we'd be in the usual position (again) of a company not bothering to innovate because their profit margins are fatter without doing so.
Stocks fall (Score:5, Informative)
It appears their stocks have dropped 12% on this news.
http://finance.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:AMD [google.com]
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Re:Stocks fall (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, there is no way to properly value this company, the proper valuation is NEGATIVE because that's what profits are.
That's one of the dumber things I've heard today and it only holds true if you assume AMD is going to keep losing money until they have to sell off their desk chairs & keyboards in a bankruptcy auction.
There is a lot more to valuing a company than "omg they lost GigaBucks this quarter!!1"
The two basic numbers to work with are:
A) whatever investors think it's worth
B) what the company's assets and fundamentals represent
A lot of times A is less than B.
The attempted Microsoft buyout of Yahoo is a good recent example.
Yahoo shares were/are trading in the low $20s even though MS offered in the low $30s
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B) what the company's assets and fundamentals represent
I would replace the word asset with equity. AMD as a lot of assets ($11.2 billion) but they also have a lot of liabilities, or debt that has to be repaid ($8.6 billion). The liabilities must be paid before stock holders receive any money. Therefore, picking stocks based solely on the fact that the company has huge assets is a terrible idea.
The stock price of a company that is not making money and carries quite a bit of debt is most likely determined by what people are willing to pay for it. Not based
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No, you made a mistake here. The only thing that matters to stock is the POSSIBILITY of profit. Say you have a company that had a fenomenal loss this quarter, but are completely sure it will have tremendous success next one. You would buy it, and so would everyone that knew, driving the price up. Stock market is an exercise of futurology. I would go as far as say that what matters to stock is profit based on stock market itself, not the company.
Think SCO here. Would you buy their stock when they claimed th
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Remember, there is no way to properly value this company, the proper valuation is NEGATIVE because that's what profits are
You sir could not less understand what you are talking about by making that kind of statement. Losing money during one quarter means nothing, even during one year, giving this company a negative stock value like your saying, would make them have to pay you to get stocks. Meaning the company would be worth a negative amount with all it's assests combined. If that was the case they would be bankrupt long ago because no one would invest in that kind of company.
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I very much DO understand what I am talking about by making that kind of statement. Negative profits, massive debt.......AMD loses more per share than many companies make, and they haven't made profit in a long time.
No apparently you don't understand. In most cases debt financing of a company is cheaper than equity financing. With AMD trying to get back on its feet after the ATI debacle, lower Cost of Capital is the best approach. Their Debt to Equity ratio is also skewed due the drop in their stock price. If you actually looked at their financial statements, $920 million of the loss was from divesture of their Handheld and DTV product businesses. Between the R770 taking the lead in the graphics division with ext
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Thus there is no bottom limit to what the stock will reach
It cannot go lower than zero, that is why loses are limited when selling put options [wikipedia.org] and theoretically unlimited when selling short [wikipedia.org] (i.e. the share price could theoretically rise to infinity). Now obviously loses (negative profits) and the prospect of more to come in the future does not bolster expectations about the future value of the company, but when valuing a company one must look not only a short term results, but at what value might be obtained from either liquidating the assets OR taking valuable as
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For me, it's all about the graphics. (Score:2)
For me, it's all about the graphics. Last computer I bought, I got an Intel CPU, since that was the only way I could get decent 3D. Fortunately, I had little need for high performance. I only needed passable 3D and stability.
Anyone know what the status of ATI/AMD open source 3D is these days? This will seriously affect my next purchasing decision. If it's any good, then AMD (via ATI, at any rate) will be getting my money.
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I would rather drop a cheap nvidia card in a machine than deal with intel graphics 3d acceleration problems.
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CPU != GPU
He was probably talking about the Intel GPU [intel.com].
Re:For me, it's all about the graphics. (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't even know Intel made graphics cards!
Only integrated graphics, as far as I know.
The Intel integrated graphics is Crap. This is well documented. Not only is the hardware somewhat anemic, Intel does not give the engineers time to workaround all the bugs, so the drivers never mature to the state they should be in.
The hardware is low-end (and low power, which is good). The drivers ahve always proven rock-solid to me. And all the features work out of the box with no tweaking. There was a bug related to screens larger than 2048x2048 for 800 series chips. This is well documented in xorg, and is unlikely to be fixed. What awful bugs are there in the 900 series? I've never had a graphics related crash from any Intel GPUs.
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The hardware is low-end (and low power, which is good).
Are you sure about the power? I got their new atom board with Intel graphics and everything minus processor and peripherals draws about 25 watts. I'm assuming their graphics is drawing most of this power. If not, Intel have some pretty inefficient other chips on there.
With a 4w processor I didn't expect 30w just to turn it on with no drives or peripherals.
Incidentally, that mobo (BOXD945GCLF) is really poor compared to any of the many AMD systems I've made, built from cheapest mobos even. It draws an ex
Re:For me, it's all about the graphics. (Score:4, Informative)
Haven't experienced a crash yet? Then try a dual monitor setup with an intel 945 (even when it works, it actually often draws garbage all over the screen... I haven't seen something like that since the DOS days).
The xorg intel drivers suck - but "luckily", they can't possibly suck as much as the ATI drivers... which are still, after all the open sourcing and linux support and whatnot, completely unusable. (At my company, we do some end-user linux OpenGL devel, and after a few weeks experimentation, we now shamefully have a company-wide "buy nvidia only" policy. We honestly just couldn't get the ATI drivers to work (on dual monitor setups; with a single monitor they're somewhat better). How does that work out for the corporation bottom line, guys?)
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>The hardware is low-end (and low power, which is good). The drivers ahve always proven rock-solid to me. And all the features work out of the box with no tweaking.
It's wouldn't be that bad except that Intel claims their integrated graphics are Vista-ready and 3D-game ready which are both lies.
There are no decent 3D games out there that are less than 5 years old that run at a decent framerate on Intel graphics and even the Vista Aero interface is too ov
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Nevertheless, that's still better than an Nvidia or ATI card that is not accelerated at all due to lack of drivers!
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Last computer I bought, I got an Intel CPU, since that was the only way I could get decent 3D.
Clarify something here for me: what the hell does your CPU have to do with it? Your GPU is what's pushing the pixels, that's the key component.
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Last computer I bought, I got an Intel CPU, since that was the only way I could get decent 3D.
Clarify something here for me: what the hell does your CPU have to do with it? Your GPU is what's pushing the pixels, that's the key component.
You may not have noticed, but Intel are the #1 GPU maker, in terms of sales and quality/stability/openness of drivers. Last time I checked you need an Intel CPU, since the GPU is integrated in to the chipset.
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Huh? (Score:2)
How would have AMD impeded use of good 3D cards? Even if you thought nVidia SLI was the only 'good' answer, there are nForce chipsets for AMD with SLI too... I personally don't buy into the price-power-performance ratio of SLI or CrossFire, btw.
If you meant OSS 3d.. (Score:2)
I can see your point, and it probably won't be until the October/November timeframe at best before distributions will make current-gen AMD/ATI graphics have 3D out of the box in an OSS way.
I personally used nVidia recently, though this laptop is AMD with their binary driver, which has been improving at least.
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How would have AMD impeded use of good 3D cards? Even if you thought nVidia SLI was the only 'good' answer, there are nForce chipsets for AMD with SLI too... I personally don't buy into the price-power-performance ratio of SLI or CrossFire, btw.
You can't get an AMD computer with a 3D card with decent drivers under Linux. My experiences with the NVidia drivers have been less than stellar.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you haven't tried the new ati linux driver (yes, it's a binary blob, waaah) then you should. Ever since AMD took over, it's gotten a lot better.
What's with the "waaaah" comment? These days, I steer clear of binary drivers. I spent many years on proprietary hardware with binary drivers. I have used binary blobs in Linux as well. I have consistently found that open drivers provide a better experience, with more stability, better implementation/larger quantity of features, and greater longevity of the hardware, since support stays around. Binary drivers (and closed software too, as it happens) have always come back to bite me sooner or later. Are you saying I should:
1) Ignore my years of previous experience
2) Support manufacturers who do not supply products I like
because you think I'm needlessly complaining?
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Get some sleep, you are not making sense.
note, I am assuming it is sleep deprivation or drugs. /. posts, and it just screwed up. lol /. being filled with MS fanboy jibberish! (yes, I know MS could technically use GPL 3.0, but they claim it is viral, and then they might have to opensource everything, lol)
But then again, maybe you created a BOT to do
If you did write one, you have to post a link to the code! But with a GPL 3 licence please, I wouldn't want MS to be able to use it, just think of
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Sorry, that's not so anymore, nor has it been since the Core 2 came out. The Core 2 come in variants that are stripped-down and cheap, without being super-slow.
I don't have the time to do all the research right now, but Intel has been trouncing AMD in the price/performance category for quite a while, and AMD keeps falling farther and farther behind.
Fix it! (Score:5, Insightful)
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i agree AMD did for a while have a great price/speed point.. but i have never found AMD (overall) to be nearly as stable and of high quality for CPU's as Intel
the number of AMD cpu's i have RMA'ed vs. Intel's i have RMA'ed is sickining.
for now i am sticking with Intel - they have redeamed them selves after the Netburst crap
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Well, AMD CPU's often had less OCing headroom but they were not less stable.
The reason for any "CPU" instability was poor chipsets. (Thanks VIA and all)
Benefit of the doubt...Maybe you meant that AMD did not have "STABLE PLATFORMS" for business. Where they lock everything in for a given amount of time so business can buy the same (crap) hardware for two years to minimize maintainance. That was true.
Don't let the door hit you Hector (Score:5, Funny)
Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
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But then Intel would have nothing to buy out if/when AMD goes belly up.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem was that Intel wasn't spending money on products that could compete with CoreDuo. They got really, really, really lucky.
The Core line of chips were originally developed as low-power laptop chips based around an older technology than Intel's "mainstream" chips of the day. Intel's roadmap up until very recently focused on further development of the Pentium 4 and Itanium lines (both of which ultimately proved to be unsustainable)
One of Intel's development teams in Israel saw the huge potential that the old Pentium III architecture had to be fast and power-efficient, when coupled with a more modern manufacturing process. In the end, the low-end power-efficient chips began to outperform their power-hungry Pentium 4 desktop offerings, and Intel quietly rebranded the line, and began to offer the Core chips as their flagship desktop offering.
Intel also made a great many mistakes with the development of Itanium, and their reliance on RAMBUS (which was proprietary, expensive, and actually slower in many cases than plain old DDR SDRAM). Their failure to embrace x86-64 could have also easily spelled disaster for the company. In terms of 64-bit development, AMD has always been the clear leader.
Intel should be counting its blessings, as they've made far more missteps than AMD have. Fortunately for them, they have a massive marketing team and extensive manufacturing facilities, both of which AMD lack.
Hopefully AMD can make something out of their R&D relating to GPGPUs, and stay viable as a competitor.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Interesting)
But more importantly, lots and lots and lots of money. Intel had the financial wiggle-room to come back from some rather colossal errors over the last decade. AMD simply did not. It could stay competitive providing it had a focused plan, but the ATI deal was precisely what AMD could not afford.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd hesitate to call that luck, let alone "really, really, really lucky". It sounds like terrific teamwork by engineering, production and management.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd hesitate to call that luck, let alone "really, really, really lucky". It sounds like terrific teamwork by engineering, production and management.
I'd agree 100%. Intel's R&D group in Israel pulled off a small miracle with their work, and should be highly commended for it. However, from what is publicly known, it seems as if it were almost a sort of "skunk works" project, largely independent of the main R&D efforts of the company. I don't think that there was terribly much being expected from them, and the fact that they were able to deliver an extremely viable product was a fortunate coincidence.
Intel's main R&D efforts were terribly misguided. It was common knowledge that RAMBUS Itanium, and the P4 line all had serious limitations, and yet Intel continued pushing forward with these products.
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Exactly. Intel got lucky in the sense that this little R&D group in Israel was able to come up with something brilliant, and the company was able to capitalize on it. If the Israeli group hadn't done so, the situation might be much much different.
That doesn't mean the Israeli R&D group got lucky - they're just brilliant. The company got lucky.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
But the Israeli group *did* exist, they *were* given the autonomy to do that work, the management *did* recognize the merits of it and decide to change course, and the production people *did* make it happen! That's not luck! If you don't understand how remarkable all of that is, you've never worked for a huge company.
What you people all seem to be arguing for, putting all your eggs in one basket and having it work out as you'd planned -- *that* is luck!
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But the Israeli group *did* exist, they *were* given the autonomy to do that work, the management *did* recognize the merits of it and decide to change course, and the production people *did* make it happen! That's not luck! If you don't understand how remarkable all of that is, you've never worked for a huge company.
The real question is how likely this will be repeated for the next product.
We don't know how much autonomy this group was granted initially, we don't know how much effort went into this, we don't know what sort of management battles were fought to avoid the smart decision here.
If Intel has good management, this sort of feat would be easily repeatable and good products will continue to be brought to market. If this smart move turns out to be more of a fluke, if we don't see anything like it again, then it wa
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, you mean luck!
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Intel ran with the ball this time.
There 386 and 486 clones were great chips, and far better than their intel counterparts.
I remember the Cyrix k5, pretty sucky chip. Then the K6 first runs were hot dog cookers, and the first athlons generated a fair amount of heat as well. I just sunsetted an athlon 1.8 I bought some
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Fortunately for them, they have a massive marketing team and extensive manufacturing facilities, both of which AMD lack.
OMG! Someone on Slashdot praised a company's marketing team, if only in part, as the reason for their success. Heretic! /sarcasm
As always, luck is simply hard work (Score:3, Interesting)
The real deal is that Intel had some time ago cut back on R&D spending, and AMD made them pay for it.
Intel realized this, increased R&D spending, and voila - "luck" magically happened.
Do you think a company with tight R&D funding would have been having ANYONE look at older processors for potential? That's not luck, that's willingness to fund even avenues that might not seem like they have potential.
Get 'em while they're cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
Better grab those Intel processors while they're cheap, because once AMD goes under, you just know Intel will return to the good old days and jack prices up through the roof.
Must be nice having no competition in the market.
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Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, but you are part of the 3% that buys leading edge products.(right?) As long as you are in the mainstream BOTH have strengths and weaknesses.
As long as you are buying a low-mid priced system, AMD competes with intel. If you are a gamer, all that really counts is the Video Card anyway.
And don't get me started on the Intel Chipsets... remember when they were king? Well, my Core2Duo Centrino laptop chipset has so many bugs... The video performance under Vista and Linux STINKS big time. (WinXP is decent, but not near AMD/ATI's level with the 780g chipset, that chipset rocks )
AMD is a bit weaker on Laptops now, they have new silicon coming that will change that.
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If this was true AMD would still be making money, but the fact is they have to discount their middle range parts below cost to stay competative with Intel.
Right now AMD cannot compete with Intel.
Doomsday? (Score:3, Insightful)
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unless too many investors bail out prematurely, of course.
You answered yourself. Such doom/gloom FUD encourages investors to flee, bringing the FUD to fruition. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Intel was connected to a lot of this kind of news.
Re:Doomsday? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is only one case where fleeing investors, and thus dropping stock prices, affects a company: if they need to issue more stock to raise more capital.
Other than that the stock price doesn't hurt the company since it's already been sold (during the IPO).
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70%+ of all stock trades are now done by a computer making a decision. These computers aren't trained to look at the long or even medium term. The look at the day to day, week to week trends and trade accordingly. Knowing this, when companies slip up and drop, it can represent buying opportunities. If you think AMD is going to comeback and have another
Enough time to turn around? (Score:4, Interesting)
As it stands, it's pretty dire. The question is, can AMD turn around and match the 45nm process with a decent design before the Nehalem generation? I wonder that explicitly because the last bragging point they have is their interprocessor architecture and memory controller, which Nehalem matches. If Intel releases that and the rest of AMD's tech remains as disadvantaged as it is, watch for some of the 4-socket and above space that AMD still has some sway in move to Intel.
Re:Enough time to turn around? (Score:4, Interesting)
My feeling at this point is that AMD is hosed. About the only thing we can hope for is that regulators block Intel from buying them when it finally becomes clear that the show is over. Any other big multigazillion dollar companies with a few billion to spend who want a chip manufacturer? I'd say IBM, but their interests seem to be elsewhere.
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Any other big multigazillion dollar companies with a few billion to spend who want a chip manufacturer? I'd say IBM, but their interests seem to be elsewhere.
If AMD goes under, I'd bet the Chinese would take a crack at it. Being in such an important industry, government support for a multi-year development effort isn't out of the question.
That would be interesting.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Though I doubt it would ever happen.
IBM buys AMD, uses circumstances to:
-Advance the fab capabilities of AMD generally (hopefully invest to actually keep up with Intel instead of lagging by a year or so)
-Release a Cell processor variant, replacing the PPC core with an x86 core.
It seems far fetched, but at the same time, the #1 supercomputer is already an AMD/Cell hybrid (two Cell processor packages for every AMD package). However, I wouldn't anticipate that core being any more performance than the PPC core, just a different instruction set. It *could* really cause some grief for intel if it caught on though. The ability to run Windows and games like normal (maybe with a penalty), but SPU enabled software could really make for some amazing media manipulation and incredible games.
Re:That would be interesting.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the fab tech is the biggest issue, TSMC or Chartered would be a natural match. They do contract chip fab for everything from DRAM to CPUs, including the XBox CPUs and some AMD CPUs (Chartered) and some of AMD's ATI GPUs and chipsets (TSMC).
It'd make sense that if you're keeping your equipment busy making stuff for a customer, you'd want to keep that revenue. The best way to ensure that is to start making the same products for yourself.
Re:That would be interesting.. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Remember that IBM is forbidden from selling CPUs for home desktops."
Huh?
Since when? IBM made the PPC for Macs for years.
So where is your documentation on this?
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AMD (Score:3, Insightful)
I love my AMD systems. What the hell? How can you have a GREAT product, market share, and blow it as often as AMD has.
I hope they can come back. ATI was such a mistake, EVERYONE knew it was, I shake my head at what passes for management or vision these days.
You just know the guys that destroy good companies get many millions of dollars while the stock holders get shafted and the stake holders get ignored.
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i agree buying ATI was amistake for AMD - i never in my mind would have seen that comming..
if nothing i would see AMD buying nVidia and Intel buying ATI. that to me seems like a better match up.
now Intel woln't use ATI chips on boards as that is supporting their competitor - so they forced Intel into competing the graphics market - which i will say they seem to be doing quite well with.
while i like ATI (alwasy have like their cards compared to nVidia - i liked that ATI designed and built the cards them sel
Re:AMD (Score:5, Insightful)
ATI was such a mistake
If the future is an integration of CPU and GPU, ATI might have been a necessary, if expensive, purchase for AMD. Also note that what AMD got was not just the ATI graphic cards, but also the chipsets. The support chipsets were always AMD's week spot.
If I lost $1.2 billion... (Score:5, Funny)
...I'd try to think where I'd last seen it and look there.
In this case, AMD should be looking at 2005.
old CEO was from Motorola (Score:5, Interesting)
Timing is everything (Score:5, Informative)
Hmmm, perhaps just a coincidence but the EU has just expanded it's anti-trust investigation into Intel.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080716-report-eu-to-expand-intel-antitrust-investigation.html [arstechnica.com]
You know what they say about lost CEOs (Score:3, Funny)
It's all about the architecture (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, as usual, management could only see 6-months ahead and the chip was canceled in favour of a 64-bit processor that was cheaper and easier to design and consequently would increase short-term revenue.
The processor that was hailed as a "revolutionary" x86 design, the Opteron, was, in fact, *directly* based off of the *K7* design. It was basically a K7 with a beefed up datapath, support for SSE2 and other miscellany, an on-board memory controller, and a high speed serial point-to-point interconnect as a replacement for the front side bus ( Hypertransport ) bolted on.
Now, you would think that the new Barcelona architecture was a great innovation, but not so much. It, like the Opteron, is a heavily leveraged design based off of the previous processor generation, namely the K8.
To get to the point, the fact is that AMD never truly created a new processor architecture -- they never truly innovated beyond bolting new crap onto old designs. In fact, the basic architecture of AMD's latest design, when you boil it down, is the same as the *K7*. Barcelona is just a ( very ) beefed up K7.
When you keep designing architectures like this you eventually hit a wall and start to stagnate due to the law of diminishing returns. So, while AMD basically did nothing essentially new with their architecture over the years, it gave Intel ample time to design, *from the ground up*, 5 new processor architectures : The Pentium-M, Core, Core 2, Nehalem, and Atom.
AMD's worst mistake was the cancellation of the Alpha EV8 inspired "K9" in 2003. Now they are paying for it.
jdb2
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You probably mean one - pentium-m. Core and core 2 is direct spinoffs of it, atom is a beefed up/scaled down modern pentium III.
Re:It's all about the architecture (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in 2003, when rumors were circulating about an AMD "K9" processor, everyone thought that a new, revolutionary, designed from the ground up processor architecture was in the works. Actually, it was. AMD was designing an *8-issue superscalar OoOE* 64-bit x86 processor. Basically the Alpha EV8 reincarnated in the form of an x86 chip. ( remember that AMD inherited a substantial portion of the Alpha design team after DEC was swalloed up by Compaq )
Unfortunately, as usual, management could only see 6-months ahead and the chip was canceled in favour of a 64-bit processor that was cheaper and easier to design and consequently would increase short-term revenue.
No, they canceled it because it was over-ambitious and couldn't work. The thermals of the design were impossible to manage, and the frequency scaling was predicted to be horrible.
No halfway-successful CPU company thinks "6 months down the road" like you claim. CPUs take years to design, tape-out, and manufacture, and CPU company management knows this.
The processor that was hailed as a "revolutionary" x86 design, the Opteron, was, in fact, *directly* based off of the *K7* design. It was basically a K7 with a beefed up datapath, support for SSE2 and other miscellany, an on-board memory controller, and a high speed serial point-to-point interconnect as a replacement for the front side bus ( Hypertransport ) bolted on.
The "mode switching" behavior that allows K8 to switch between 32bit and 64bit modes on the fly is pretty impressive, as well.
So, while AMD basically did nothing essentially new with their architecture over the years, it gave Intel ample time to design, *from the ground up*, 5 new processor architectures : The Pentium-M, Core, Core 2, Nehalem, and Atom.
AMD's worst mistake was the cancellation of the Alpha EV8 inspired "K9" in 2003. Now they are paying for it.
jdb2
What the fuck? Pentium-M, Core, Core 2, etc are not "revolutionary, from the ground up" architectures. In fact, the basic architecture, when you boil it down, is nothing more than a "very beefed up" P6 -- AKA Pentium Pro -- which predates even K7.
I don't disagree that K9 is a disappointing warm-over of K8, but truely "new" cpu architectures don't come around all that often. Power6 is "beefed up" Power5, which is "beefed up" Power4, etc. A good architecture can last a very long time, and it's wasteful and dangerous to throw out a proven design for an unproven "new" design -- see NetBurst for an excellent example.
Re:Don't invest in AMD... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's up to the shareholders to hold the company to the fire. I have no idea why every shareholder of every company out there isn't forcing the companies to put in performance clawbacks. Imagine if a CEO were faced with the possibility of having to return their bonuses, and maybe even a portion of their salaries, if the company did a nosedive like AMD has. But since shareholders are either too stupid or too frightened to start pushing their weight around, this CEO bonus crapola continues. Oh well, I'm not investing in AMD, so if they want to pay a fucking retard millions to screw their share value, then my hats off to them.
Re:Don't invest in AMD... (Score:5, Informative)
Because it is the Boards of these companies that set pay policies, not shareholders. Further, it is all but impossible to get a measure on the proxy vote to force the Boards to change pay policy. The best one can hope for is to make a 'recommendation' to the Board to change pay policy.
Unless is it is specifically stated somewhere in the corporate bylaws, the final decision as to executive compensation rests with the Board, not the shareholders.
Re:Don't invest in AMD... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about the video cards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the number of video cards sold vs. the number of CPU's sold is jsut a small fraction.
and considering the price distrubution of products bought - having the best on the high end doens't help too much as it is out of the price range of most computers sold.
so no - it isn't going to save them - while it helps - it willnot save by any means.
Re:The beginning of the end for AMD (Score:5, Informative)
I guess when a mediocre CPU manufacturer merges with a mediocre GPU manufacturer this is what you get.
At the moment AMD's GPUs are the best value you can get. The Radeon HD4850 and 4870 are exceptional cards while Nvidia seems to have botched their latest line - although they're faster, they're hideously expensive for only moderate performance gains above AMD's parts, and have very large power needs. And just for the record, every GPU I've bought has been an Nvidia one. I'm no AMD/ATI fanboy.
Re:The beginning of the end for AMD (Score:5, Informative)
Just for the record AMD/ATI technically have the fastest single board Video card on the market smashing nvidia on pure raw power 2.4TFLOPS admittedly their is some creative thinking behind it but it is the king
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14178&page=1