AMD layoffs

[primesuspect]

i know Antal did. One of my Tech editor friends in Europe used to work with him over there. i believe Antal filled the PR spot when Evan got promoted.

These guys are really hard workers. i wish them very well and any company that hires them would get great employees. Do you know about the PR guys in the CPU division? Peter or Robert? Hania?

John Swinimer emailed me to let me know he got laid off. I then found out Peter Amos also got the axe. John told me the only guy left for PR in GPU was Dave Erskine. I also heard from Radeon PMM Robert Hallock, and he told me Chris Hook was still there (so is Robert).

 

[drizek]

I see that's what most people keep saying. However, didn't AMD's PR/Marketing team succeed in part because many people on our boards, and likely otherwise, still waited for 9 months after SB launched in January 2011 to upgrade?.

Anybody can do that if they resort to lying. I don't know what AMD even got out of all of this. The chips aren't even in stock anywhere. We couldn't buy them even if we wanted to.

The Overclock.net bulldozer OCing competition still hasn't happened because they don't have any chips.

 

[Nemesis 1]

With Intel Pentium 4 "good PR" was giving out lots of cash for putting stickers on boxes and the like. AMD has never had that kind of warche$t. If they did then they would have used the money to build more Fabs during the A64 days.

When are you guys going to stop . AMD was capcity constrained and sold everthing they could make. in 2005

 

[Nemesis 1]

I just got an email from John Swinimer. He's gone as well

I may have missed it , But exactly who are you ? Did JFAMD get axed.

 

[apoppin]

John Swinimer emailed me to let me know he got laid off. I then found out Peter Amos also got the axe. John told me the only guy left for PR in GPU was Dave Erskine. I also heard from Radeon PMM Robert Hallock, and he told me Chris Hook was still there (so is Robert).

i just heard from Evan; glad he still has his AMD email address and job. He is probably the hardest working PR person that i have seen there yet (he is working today, Sunday!).


Yes, Dave is the go to guy in GPU now. It also looks like SW is pretty intact. i would say the cuts were not "across the board"
(although that is where they should have started - with the BoD)
:whiste:

 

[Qianglong]

I may have missed it , But exactly who are you ? Did JFAMD get axed.

I believe he is one of the editors at Icrontic.com another smaller hardware enthusiast site. They seem to have the best coverage of the AMD bloodshed:

http://tech.icrontic.com/news/the-axe-falls-at-amd-as-layoffs-sweep-through-the-company/

 

[primesuspect]

I may have missed it , But exactly who are you ? Did JFAMD get axed.

I'm Brian from Icrontic, the site that broke this story.

As far as I know, JFAMD made it through unscathed.

 

[exar333]

I see that's what most people keep saying. However, didn't AMD's PR/Marketing team succeed in part because many people on our boards, and likely otherwise, still waited for 9 months after SB launched in January 2011 to upgrade? I don't think even Steve Jobs could have marketed Bulldozer well. You can complain about specific use of graphics or commercials or overclocking events that AMD's PR/marketing team staged, but I bet you they had nothing else to show that would put Bulldozer in a good light. I think the problem is they created way too much hype behind Bulldozer that made the flop even worse since many expected it to perform well.

What are you going to do? Come out and say we have worse IPC than Phenom II, worse gaming performance than 2008 Nehalem, higher prices than 2500k? :sneaky: A CPU is a performance device. It's not a consumer device that you can "feel" or "experience" or show off to your friends or admire its construction quality or resale value. Its purchased for these reasons - well-rounded performance, performance per watt, and performance for the price. Bulldozer fails in all 3. How in the world do you successfully market something like that?

They did their best with what imho is the worst CPU since Pentium D. But at least Pentium D wasn't more expensive than Athlon X2.....

The folks who are crazy about BD don't need any marketing at all. They would buy anything with an AMD logo on the box. I agree with a few others here though, that AMD did some very shady PR work for BD though, some outright lies.

 

[Idontcare]

The folks who are crazy about BD don't need any marketing at all. They would buy anything with an AMD logo on the box. I agree with a few others here though, that AMD did some very shady PR work for BD though, some outright lies.

I admit to being one of those people who intentionally delayed their Sandy Bridge vs. Bulldozer purchase because of the AMD PR.

However, unlike some unfortunate souls, I threw in the towel around early August when it became obvious that even the "60-90 day" delay was BS.

In terms of helping AMD, the PR tactic obviously didn't work out, but in terms of hurting Intel and their platform partners (mobo's) it worked. Intel booked a delay in revenue from me, as did Asus, because instead of making my purchase in Q1 I delayed it to Q3 thanks to AMD PR (and my gullibility in believing it).

 

[exar333]

I admit to being one of those people who intentionally delayed their Sandy Bridge vs. Bulldozer purchase because of the AMD PR.

However, unlike some unfortunate souls, I threw in the towel around early August when it became obvious that even the "60-90 day" delay was BS.

In terms of helping AMD, the PR tactic obviously didn't work out, but in terms of hurting Intel and their platform partners (mobo's) it worked. Intel booked a delay in revenue from me, as did Asus, because instead of making my purchase in Q1 I delayed it to Q3 thanks to AMD PR (and my gullibility in believing it).

I think a lot of people delayed as well because BD was so long in the making, and it sounded like a great product. Again, on paper, BD looked fantastic.

 

[JumpingJack]

Again, on paper, BD looked fantastic.

So did Prescott.

 

[wlee15]

So did Prescott.

Not really, I don't think anyone really thought that Prescott would be anything but a modest improvement over the previous P4 designs.

 

[drizek]

I think everyone knew/wished that Netburst would die and go away.

People say that Northwood wasn't that bad, but not only was it not superior to the Athlon FX (or even XP), but it was tying/losing to Intel's own Pentium M chips with a quarter of the TDP.

Read this thread a bit for fun, http://forums.storagereview.com/ind...intel-dothan-compared-to-pentium-iv-prescott/

From July 2004,

the pentium M is a huge embarrasment to intel. It basically proves what the amd guys have been saying all along, that the P4 platform is a joke

Bulldozer was not the same as Prescott, at all. It has a lot more in common with some of nVidias GPU failures than with anything that Intel put out.

 

[podspi]

Bulldozer was not the same as Prescott, at all. It has a lot more in common with some of nVidias GPU failures than with anything that Intel put out.

It reminds me more of Willamette than Prescott.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Bulldozer reminds me more of Poughkeepsie, for my part.

 

[Rifter]

I see that's what most people keep saying. However, didn't AMD's PR/Marketing team succeed in part because many people on our boards, and likely otherwise, still waited for 9 months after SB launched in January 2011 to upgrade? I don't think even Steve Jobs could have marketed Bulldozer well. You can complain about specific use of graphics or commercials or overclocking events that AMD's PR/marketing team staged, but I bet you they had nothing else to show that would put Bulldozer in a good light. I think the problem is they created way too much hype behind Bulldozer that made the flop even worse since many expected it to perform well.

What are you going to do? Come out and say we have worse IPC than Phenom II, worse gaming performance than 2008 Nehalem, higher prices than 2500k? :sneaky: A CPU is a performance device. It's not a consumer device that you can "feel" or "experience" or show off to your friends or admire its construction quality or resale value. Its purchased for these reasons - well-rounded performance, performance per watt, and performance for the price. Bulldozer fails in all 3. How in the world do you successfully market something like that?

They did their best with what imho is the worst CPU since Pentium D. But at least Pentium D wasn't more expensive than Athlon X2.....

Dude anyone can lie to make there products look good, that doesnt take skill or talent or intellegence. Good marketing departments(like apple, i hate apple but one thing they are fantastic at is marketing) can sell snowballs to eskimos without straight out lieing to the potential customers.

They chose to lie, they chose to let JF hang himself, and they didnt even say anything about if after the facts were out and it was proven they were feeding us complete BS for YEARS about BD.

I honestly dont think AMD is going to survive another 5 years if they dont do some serious house cleaning of the senior board, firing the marketing department was a joke of an attempt to save cash, they need better management not less PR people.

 

[Riek]

Dude anyone can lie to make there products look good, that doesnt take skill or talent or intellegence. Good marketing departments(like apple, i hate apple but one thing they are fantastic at is marketing) can sell snowballs to eskimos without straight out lieing to the potential customers.

They chose to lie, they chose to let JF hang himself, and they didnt even say anything about if after the facts were out and it was proven they were feeding us complete BS for YEARS about BD.

I think you need to think a little further before calling liars and cheaters on people...

They had absolutely no id BD will turn out the way it did...
They targeted higher ipc but that didn't come out
They targeted higher frequencies but that didn't turn out either.

So if you expect them to know both of this issues before they start designen or during design... than the you prefer no information or projecteries at all? In that case don't look on forums and wait for official releases...

Or you expect them to say few months in advance... yeah we didn't reach our goals...? While the latter might be a human reaction to something, try doing it for yourself... you'll notice how hard it is even when you have little to gain.... Now assume you are in a huge market with lots and lots of $$.. Now you can shut the hell up and hope that between that point and release you reach at least one of your inital design goals.. have a successull launch and make money... or you say yeah it won't work few months before you launch it.. sell nothing... get no interest from partners...

Most people here are way to emotionally involved... Stop thinking AMD is your partner in life, they are a company just like any other... that makes projecteries on their future products and what their goal is.... Just like most here would say to their 3week old relationship partner: 'i can't live without you'... Its not a lie... you just don't have any more information at that time to indicate differently... You can also refuse to say anything... and just like the partner would do: you will be dropped and be out of the picture before you can say 'Bazinga'.

 

[Rifter]

I think you need to think a little further before calling liars and cheaters on people...

They had absolutely no id BD will turn out the way it did...
They targeted higher ipc but that didn't come out
They targeted higher frequencies but that didn't turn out either.

So if you expect them to know both of this issues before they start designen or during design... than the you prefer no information or projecteries at all? In that case don't look on forums and wait for official releases...

Or you expect them to say few months in advance... yeah we didn't reach our goals...? While the latter might be a human reaction to something, try doing it for yourself... you'll notice how hard it is even when you have little to gain.... Now assume you are in a huge market with lots and lots of $$.. Now you can shut the hell up and hope that between that point and release you reach at least one of your inital design goals.. have a successull launch and make money... or you say yeah it won't work few months before you launch it.. sell nothing... get no interest from partners...

Most people here are way to emotionally involved... Stop thinking AMD is your partner in life, they are a company just like any other... that makes projecteries on their future products and what their goal is.... Just like most here would say to their 3week old relationship partner: 'i can't live without you'... Its not a lie... you just don't have any more information at that time to indicate differently... You can also refuse to say anything... and just like the partner would do: you will be dropped and be out of the picture before you can say 'Bazinga'.

They knew long before release IPC was not going to increase, JF was pumping that out on all major foums till early this year at which point there IS NO WAY IN HELL they didnt have ES samples back that would show that to be completly false. They either lied to JF or just witheld the info from him, either way they screwed us and him completly by making that decision.

Im not saying AMD is our firend im just saying they made very poor marketing decisions even long after they had to know the truth, and by lieing that doesnt make for good marketing.

Also the way JF handled alot of the "leaked" benchmarks telling people they were spreading FUD and calling them liers didnt help the case at all, and was very poor marketing. Especially since all he had to do was look at the benchmarks the ES samples were returning to know that the "leaked" benchmarks were correct and that he was himself the one being the troll and spreading FUD.

All in all BD was a huge marketing fail for AMD.