[allthingsd.com] AMD getting ready for another round of Layoffs

[Ferzerp]

This isn't going to affect AMD in the end so don't worry about it.

 

[LxMxFxD4]

Nobody wants to see the company go under, but pretending huge layoffs like this aren't really a big deal is nothing more than denial.

O rly? Because when people do not buy an AMD product they are voting for it to go under.

It may not be deliberate but AMD is like your local Italian Restaurant. And once it goes under you are left eating nothing but shitty Olive Garden.

The sad truth is that when AMD is gone Intel will simply stop innovating. Period.

 

[LxMxFxD4]

AMD's CEO position was apparently so undesirable that they took forever trying to find a permanent CEO and came up with ...Rory Read?!?!

Intel - Paul Otellini, Bachelors Economics, USF; MBA UC Berkeley (Haas school of business)

NVidia - Jen-Hsun Huang, BS (EE) Oregon State University, MS (EE) Stanford University

AMD - Rory Read, bachelor's degree in Information Systems from Hartwick College

One of these guys doesn't belong. Hiring consultants, firing engineers, driving out a ton of guys ranging from Huddy to Demers to Carrell Killebrew... wtf. Don't fire your GPU people, the only part of the company making money. If you're gonna fire anyone, fire Rory Read.

LOL. Consider this list:

Bill Gates - Harvard Drop out
Philip K Dick - Berkeley Drop out
Steve Jobs - Reed college drop out

I could go on but you've already been owned.

 

[AdamK47]

This isn't going to affect AMD in the end so don't worry about it.

Sure it will. In "the end", having less employees helps for a smoother bankruptcy.

 

[Ferzerp]

O rly? Because when people do not buy an AMD product they are voting for it to go under.

It may not be deliberate but AMD is like your local Italian Restaurant. And once it goes under you are left eating nothing but shitty Olive Garden.

The sad truth is that when AMD is gone Intel will simply stop innovating. Period.

Not wanting a company to go under does not justify welfare purchases of poor products. If they continue to make poor products, it is the natural course. Disliking that happening does not mean the answer is to waste money on goods that aren't as good as the others I could buy. The state of AMD is firmly AMD and its managment's fault, no matter how much you want to shift it to purchasers.

 

[jpiniero]

The sad truth is that when AMD is gone Intel will simply stop innovating. Period.

Intel's got ARM to worry about. They are going to have to continue to innovate to fight them off. Of course, the goals are going to be different now...

What is the aim of the big restructuring AMD globally that affects everything? Cutting engineers doesn't normally produce a good outcome in design/manufacturing corp.

May have no choice. It looks like it is dire enough that they have to turn a profit in Q4 or they are toast.

 

[Nemesis 1]

This isn't going to affect AMD in the end so don't worry about it.

Really . I will wait for the stock price to bottom and buy buy BYE AMD

 

[MaxPayne63]

May have no choice. It looks like it is dire enough that they have to turn a profit in Q4 or they are toast.

I think you may be right. Have you looked at how much debt they have?

I wonder what a restructuring would look like. If they had to sell ATI they would be stuck selling budget chips in Intel's market until x86 is replaced. I did like what I heard before from AMD (that they would focus on other markets and stop pretending they're competing with Intel) but maybe it's just too late.

 

[Ferzerp]

I think you may be right. Have you looked at how much debt they have?

I wonder what a restructuring would look like. If they had to sell ATI they would be stuck selling budget chips in Intel's market until x86 is replaced. I did like what I heard before from AMD (that they would focus on other markets and stop pretending they're competing with Intel) but maybe it's just too late.

As others have pointed out, it isn't really clear how they could sell off ATI since they've started mating the ATI tech with their procs. They'd have to drop that line I guess.

 

[Revolution 11]

The better question would be why they would want to in the first place? Kepler's doing quite well in the consumer space and Quadro/Teslas are doing well HPC and workstation as well. nVidia would have more interest in AMD's CPU engineers and CPU IP blocks than their graphics division. The battle on the ARM front is being dominated by Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple and the Tegra 3 design is looking very outdated.

It doesn't have to be Nvidia buying ATI or whatever the GPU assets in AMD are called. My question is based on Nvidia being the only GPU company standing. Would Nvidia being the only provider of consumer GPUs be a violation of antitrust law? (Technically, there needs to be abuse of monopoly power but would abuse in a very narrow market segment qualify?)

 

[ShintaiDK]

The sad truth is that when AMD is gone Intel will simply stop innovating. Period.

Wrong. Intel needs to innovate and sell at low prices. Or people wont buy and the volume/magin ratio drops. In other words, profit drops.

You wont see a stop in innovation and you wont see a price increase besides regular price index correction.

 

[ShintaiDK]

As others have pointed out, it isn't really clear how they could sell off ATI since they've started mating the ATI tech with their procs. They'd have to drop that line I guess.

Could be some cross licensing agreement.

But as shown money wise, GPU division aint exactly making much money. So only reason to buy them would be the IP. A buyout could simply kill the discrete GPUs.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It doesn't have to be Nvidia buying ATI or whatever the GPU assets in AMD are called. My question is based on Nvidia being the only GPU company standing. Would Nvidia being the only provider of consumer GPUs be a violation of antitrust law? (Technically, there needs to be abuse of monopoly power but would abuse in a very narrow market segment qualify?)

Unless nVidia somehow abuses their monopoly situation. Then there wont be an antitrust. Lots of monopolies around the world. And any possible antitrust would be a fine only.

Also if AMD GPUs for some reason goes off the market. Then there aint any other options than nVidia only in the business terms. Its a decreasing market for discrete cards and the design costs keep going up. In other words, its better with 1 player unless you want to kill advancement or perhaps even kill nVidia too before its time. Better to feed one than let everyone die of starvation.

Microsoft pretty much got a free do what you want in the same area.

 

[Phynaz]

Total rubbish. I advise that you investigate this topic yourself.

Way to miss the point.

 

[Abwx]

Not wanting a company to go under does not justify welfare purchases of poor products..

Most of currently sold PCs are laptops with IGPs and in this respect
the Intel ones are the most crappiest products one can imagine ,
yet you re promoting those inferior products by voluntarly
downplaying the competitor strengths...

The common perception in the public , thanks to viral posters ,
is that a weak IGP can easily be compensated by using a faster
CPU , an erroneous assumption that was covertly supported
by people , like you , whose real agenda is to mislead
the eventual reader that looks for infos about the available
products....

 

[Keysplayr]

O rly? Because when people do not buy an AMD product they are voting for it to go under.

It may not be deliberate but AMD is like your local Italian Restaurant. And once it goes under you are left eating nothing but shitty Olive Garden.

The sad truth is that when AMD is gone Intel will simply stop innovating. Period.

Do you believe that people should buy an inferior product to support the company that made them? Do you believe they should buy the best product for the money spent? And for the record, and evidenced by the buying public according to the 100 million write down, Olive Garden = AMD. And I think the Italian Restaurant will remain just where it is.
When AMD is gone, something else will emerge I'm sure, whether it spawns from AMD's sold IP or other.

 

[Idontcare]

7/9/2012 5:11 PM EDT

AMD warns of Q2 sales shortfall

AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said it now expects second quarter sales to be about $1.42 billion, down 11 percent from the first quarter.

Operating expenses for the second quarter are expected to improve and to be approximately 8 percent less than prior guidance of approximately $605 million, due to tightly controlled expenses, AMD said.

10/11/2012 5:37 PM EDT

AMD warns of Q3 sales shortfall

AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said preliminary results show that the company's revenue declined about 10 percent sequentially to $1.27 billion in the third quarter, which closed Sept. 29.

AMD said its third quarter operating expenses are expected to decline about 7 percent from the second quarter as a result of tight expense controls.

Q2: "sales are down 11% so we are reducing costs by 8%"
Q3: "sales are down 10% so we are reducing costs by 7%"

I see a trend here.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

they are the distant second player in a shrinking market. ill be surprised of amd is around in any form 3 years from now

 

[Raghu]

Q2: "sales are down 11% so we are reducing costs by 8%"
Q3: "sales are down 10% so we are reducing costs by 7%"

Money they are paying to the fab goes down too. Less chips sold = less chips ordered from fab = less money paid to fab = reduced operating cost?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

There is a very logical buyer for AMD, and it's Intel. They would gain access to AMD's GPU's and be able to offer nvidia some competition all while trying to fend off ARM.

 

[Centauri]

^Yeah, I'm sure the DoJ would love that one.

 

[meloz]

The sad truth is that when AMD is gone Intel will simply stop innovating. Period.

Unlikely, because that would kill the demand for upgrades from existing userbase of desktop and notebook PCs, to say nothing of servers in datacenters. Also, there is some pressure on Intel to improve performance/watt due to ARM getting some traction in the lower end.

Intel might slow down their speed of innovation a bit -it could be argued they done it already when you consider how late the large socket IVB will be brought to market- but they cannot slow down too much, specially with mainstream parts. They depend on people replacing their 3-10 year PCs to gather volume.

Entire Intel business model is dependent on huge volumes. Once they lose their volume they will find it impossible to invest in foundries and maintain a manufacturing edge, they would slide down back to Samsung and TSMC levels.

Q2: "sales are down 11% so we are reducing costs by 8%"
Q3: "sales are down 10% so we are reducing costs by 7%"

I see a trend here.

It is the spiral of doom. Unless they find generous investor(s) quickly who are willing to throw some billion $, AMD will not be able to escape from this vicious cycle.

 

[MisterMac]

Unlikely, because that would kill the demand for upgrades from existing userbase of desktop and notebook PCs, to say nothing of servers in datacenters. Also, there is some pressure on Intel to improve performance/watt due to ARM getting some traction in the lower end.

Intel might slow down their speed of innovation a bit -it could be argued they done it already when you consider how late the large socket IVB will be brought to market- but they cannot slow down too much, specially with mainstream parts. They depend on people replacing their 3-10 year PCs to gather volume.

Entire Intel business model is dependent on huge volumes. Once they lose their volume they will find it impossible to invest in foundries and maintain a manufacturing edge, they would slide down back to Samsung and TSMC levels.



It is the spiral of doom. Unless they find generous investor(s) quickly who are willing to throw some billion $, AMD will not be able to escape from this vicious cycle.

Not 100% true, it's about perspective imho.


They are going to fight ARM, clearly they already believe AMD is most likely dead in grave - and will try to snap up talent + whatever ip they're allowed from the DOJ once AMD hits the fan.

But that means they're fighting on a different ground than 10 years ago.
We will see a slowdown of enthusiast styles things.

In the old days the grand flagships said precedence for the market to choose a brand. Not so much in tablets, not so much in LP segments.

Does the average consumer even know qualcomm or imagination?


If AMD goes belly up, we won't see 150w power desktop parts for less than 1% of the market - even if they do cost 1000 usd.
And we cannot expect the relentless of tick\tock to translate to our performance increases per generation we're "used to".
That's whats going to hit people like us - cause we won't feel innovation.

Joe will while sitting on his tablet @ starbucks reading news and making presentations in fulltime render 3d with no latency issues while having 30 hour battery work time.

 

[ShintaiDK]

There is a very logical buyer for AMD, and it's Intel. They would gain access to AMD's GPU's and be able to offer nvidia some competition all while trying to fend off ARM.

There is nothing AMD got that Intel not already got access to and want.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Look at AMD and you see stagnant innovation in terms of speed. I think people confuse the design complexity by extracing more IPC out of designs with stagnation. R&D budgets are higher than every. This aint GPUs where you can just slap twice as many shaders on with a node shift (Put bluntly).

Intel could release a 32 core Atom at 2Ghz for your desktop. But it wouldnt exactly be fast in what you use it for, would it? No, you want higher IPC and more clocks. Something that is increasing hard to get.

The current focus is also lowering power consumption and minimizing the platforms. While in pure performance its not something "great". Its great in alot of other areas that many other appreciate. Thats still innovation nomatter how you try and twist it.