"AMD Moves Away From PCs Amid Steep Losses"

[Maximilian]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ultramobile-tablet-apu-cpu,18546.html

Well that sucks

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Amd is one massive failure. Everyone knows this.

 

[jpiniero]

AMD should have done what nVidia is doing.

 

[exar333]

Just read this article. Wow, just wow. Not surprising with the current climate, but it looks like AMD gave up it's fab at the worst time. If they still had the fab, maybe they would be really attractive to buyers. Now, all they own is IP, and you have to wonder if they will just die and various groups will pick their corpse for morsels to take.

On the more positive side, it will be interesting to see the phone and tablet market heat-up as both AMD and Intel step in. I am pretty pessimistic on AMD re-gaining much of their server market though. With ARM low-power servers on the horizon, and Intel still owning the sector, I just don't see much of a market for them there.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The real question is, do I trust AMD to go through this change and make a recovery. If I do trust them to pull of this refocusing of their priorities and business strategy how much stock do I buy now while it's down in the dumps.

 

[Idontcare]

Even if they do recover, Rory is saying he's planning on it taking a year. That means the stock price will continue to come under pressure quarter after bad quarter for the next year. Now is not the time to buy-in. Wait 9 months.

Waiting is also a hedge against continued slowdown in the global economy. The global picture is not likely to turn around and swing upwards in 9 months. At best it will hold level, but there is a good chance it will slide south taking AMD even further with it.

So wait 9 months and let AMD muddle through its restructuring plans and let the world muddle through its stagnation in the meantime.

 

[Yuriman]

Even if they do recover, Rory is saying he's planning on it taking a year. That means the stock price will continue to come under pressure quarter after bad quarter for the next year. Now is not the time to buy-in. Wait 9 months.

Waiting is also a hedge against continued slowdown in the global economy. The global picture is not likely to turn around and swing upwards in 9 months. At best it will hold level, but there is a good chance it will slide south taking AMD even further with it.

So wait 9 months and let AMD muddle through its restructuring plans and let the world muddle through its stagnation in the meantime.

Don't invest in the world right now either. =P

Couldn't resist.

 

[exar333]

Really interested to see what they plan o do with the graphics division based on ow it will fit into the 'new vision'.

 

[Fox5]

Sooo..... they're going after VIA's market and trying to position their x86 chips as the ARM of the x86 world?

Too bad they're using Bulldozer and Bobcat based cores as the basis for this. While bobcat is decent, Phenom cores would have been better to use instead of Bulldozer cores.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Does "slowing down and capitalizing on our old tech" seem like an extremely bad idea in the tech industry to anyone else?

Hopefully when they talk about slowing down with faster product cycles (less R&D basically) they're not including graphics.

 

[Idontcare]

Does "slowing down and capitalizing on our old tech" seem like an extremely bad idea in the tech industry to anyone else?

Hopefully when they talk about slowing down with faster product cycles (less R&D basically) they're not including graphics.

Its clear you don't understand how being a predator works.

"We got to become the hunters, we have to look forward, we have to go attack the hill," he said. "When you set your objectives on something that you believe in, you look ahead. As the predator, you become the aggressor, and you deliver on those goals. I had a great job at Lenovo – it was awesome. I'm here because I want to be here, and I believe so much in this team and what we can do together."

Step 1 - give predator speech
Step 2 - lose lots of money and fire employees, but only for the first year or three
Step 3 - profit

 

[Soulkeeper]

Nice speech, he looks a lot older in the video than in the picture they always show of him.
I just can't believe that a ceo has any real control over AMD's direction anymore, the board of directors seem like the real policy setters and decision makers.
They've been talking about capitalizing on the mobile, portable, ultra-*, etc. market for years.

 

[moonbogg]

I really don't want to spend $700 for a decent CPU in the next couple of years or sooner. This sucks. There has to be some strong company who can buy AMD and build a new fab and start kicking ass. Hell, Apple should buy them.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I really don't want to spend $700 for a decent CPU in the next couple of years or sooner. This sucks. There has to be some strong company who can buy AMD and build a new fab and start kicking ass. Hell, Apple should buy them.

No. Just no.

 

[SPBHM]

if they can win the 3 consoles (they already won the Wii U GPU, and some think that this also might be the case for the next XB and PS4, some believe even the CPU), and somehow gain more market share for NBs/tables and offer some different server solutions (with APUs, maybe mixed with ARM?) that might not be a bad thing...

they are still talking about "40-50%" of their focus on the PC market...

even if AMD was suddenly gone, I don't think Intel would change much...
look at the money they are making... there is a huge market for their products at the current price point.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I really don't want to spend $700 for a decent CPU in the next couple of years or sooner. This sucks. There has to be some strong company who can buy AMD and build a new fab and start kicking ass. Hell, Apple should buy them.

Lol, you don't get how business works, do you? Intel would not sell CPUs for $700 because nobody would buy them. Period. Intel has a lot of competition at the low end much more potent than AMD. Their names are Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, and Nvidia.

 

[eternalone]

Its time for the chinese to fill in the gap AMD is leaving and start making some cheap fast Desktop CPU's. Lets make it happen, china.

 

[2is]

if they can win the 3 consoles (they already won the Wii U GPU, and some think that this also might be the case for the next XB and PS4, some believe even the CPU), and somehow gain more market share for NBs/tables and offer some different server solutions (with APUs, maybe mixed with ARM?) that might not be a bad thing...

they are still talking about "40-50%" of their focus on the PC market...

even if AMD was suddenly gone, I don't think Intel would change much...
look at the money they are making... there is a huge market for their products at the current price point.

And without competition, the market would stay huge at higher price points.

The console market won't help them recover, at best it would delay the inevitable (assuming the continue on their current path) the profit margins are very small for consoles, they make up for it a little with volume, but that alone isn't going to keep AMD afloat.

 

[BD231]

I really don't want to spend $700 for a decent CPU in the next couple of years or sooner. This sucks. There has to be some strong company who can buy AMD and build a new fab and start kicking ass. Hell, Apple should buy them.

Clearly someone needs to figure out how to make the fab industry affordable so innovation isn't limited to one or two entities. People clamor about loosing 1 competitor (AMD) not even touching on what a joke it is to have only one other option in such a necessary market.

 

[NTMBK]

Sooo..... they're going after VIA's market and trying to position their x86 chips as the ARM of the x86 world?

Too bad they're using Bulldozer and Bobcat based cores as the basis for this. While bobcat is decent, Phenom cores would have been better to use instead of Bulldozer cores.

I imagine Jaguar will be their main weapon in this. Newer process, design that scales from 1-4 cores, relatively easily transferred across manufacturing processes and easy to add 3rd party IP to for a semi-custom chip. All it really needs is someone big (like Lenovo, HP, Dell or Microsoft) to take Apple's cue and go ask AMD for a semicustom tablet/ultrathin chip, but this time with x86 cores. Do a variation on the ARM model- they can't just license out core designs, but they can always integrate whatever people ask for instead.

 

[meloz]

AMD should have done what nVidia is doing.

nvidia is doing what it is doing because they do not have AMD64 licenses and IP, unlike AMD and Intel. Throwing away all the work done on powerful AMD64 product lineup will be the stupidest thing AMD could possibly do, after Bulldozer.

They might be behind Intel, but the solution is (was?) not to run away like scared children, but improve their product. Without powerful AMD64 products, AMD is not AMD.

If they cannot compete with Intel in the desktop PC segment (where penalty for power consumption is weak to non-existant as long as you have strong performance per $), how will AMD compete in the performance / $ and performance / watt obsessed world of tablets et al? And they will do all this R&D while cutting budgets and downsizing.

"Winning" the gaming console designs is pyrrhic, you win those contracts by bidding so low there is low to no profitability. It only prolongs the death. To say nothing about the future prospects of the console gaming segment itself...

They are jumping from firepan into the fire. There are no easy niches anywhere, and the low-power segment also has highest amount of competition. AArch64 is coming, though still unproven. But the mere presence of many ARM licensees will increase competition and cut down profitability in the segment for everyone.

Meanwhile, there is no sign that most of servers, workstations and even desktops will move away from 'high powered' AMD64 anytime soon. The PC might not be a wildly growing segment, but is is a well established market. It has also been AMD's strength, and still would be if the imbeciles didn't conceive that abortion Bulldozer.

The biggest margins -and profit- is still in the high powered server and workstation CPUs.

Focusing away from "PC" is another retarded move like Bulldozer, but it might be that it is all too late. The ship is now destined to hit the iceberg and sink no matter what the skipper does, and the only choice captain Read now has is whether he wants to take the blow to port or starboard.

I -for one- am not buying into the whole post-PC era bullsh!t. Tablets and smartphones will sell in much larger quantities because they are gadgets (status gadgets for some), but that does not mean they will always be as profitable as they are now. Large revenues do not necessarily mean large profits, ask anyone in the airline industry.

The margins for OEMs and upstream SoC providers in the tablet and gadget arena will crash dramatically once consumers realize that they do not need to buy $499 tablet/smartphone, a $49-99 toy is 'good enough' for every possible task they need the gadget for.

What will AMD do then? Change course again and rush to resuscitate its now dying PC business, where Intel will be the sole established provider in the entire world and making record profits per quarter?

 

[SPBHM]

And without competition, the market would stay huge at higher price points.

The console market won't help them recover, at best it would delay the inevitable (assuming the continue on their current path) the profit margins are very small for consoles, they make up for it a little with volume, but that alone isn't going to keep AMD afloat.

ARM is already some competition, higher price points would be risky for Intel... they are already making some serious money, higher price points, or lack of innovation could have a big negative impact for them (reduced interest + the growing power of the ARM CPUs)...
and I don't see AMD out of the PC market anytime soon...

3 consoles, that's probably way over 100mi units over a few years, it can't be bad...
AMD's way to respond to the new, lower profits is reducing costs it seems...
that's what they are talking about on the article...

 

[sontin]

I read the transcript i don't see anything new in it - APUs, APUs, APUs.

I think they have no new strategy right now. Cutting of workers it only there for reducing costs. nVidia on the other hand is hiring new people for their Tegra business...

And AMD has no clue how their graphics IP will help their business:

Steven Eliscu - UBS Investment Bank, Research DivisionAnd as a second question here, just thinking more philosophically about your APU strategy. And you have differentiating graphics. Yet, when we look at the third-party market research data, you're not getting paid for it, at least when we look at what was done with Llano. I'm trying to understand if there's something we're missing in terms of maybe you are starting to get some of that uplift on Trinity and you'll get more with Kaveri. Or is there perhaps a basis for rethinking your strategy and focusing a set of higher-performance GPUs on smaller die sizes that could get your gross margin back to the mid to upper 40s where it's been your goal?

Lisa T. Su - Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Business UnitYes, I think the question around the APUs is a good one. Now we are very clear that the APU strategy is the right strategy for us. Now in terms of ensuring that we get the value for it, it's not just a piece of silicon, but it's also what we can do in the solutions environment. So we have been doing a lot of work to ensure that the applications can take advantage of all of the compute that we have on the silicon. And you can see that with some of the moves that we've made with the Heterogeneous Systems Architecture, creating industry consortium around the heterogeneous compute. And we've had a number of new members. We talked about QUALCOMM and Samsung joining as well as ARM and Imagination. So I think it's evolution over time. But it's clear that the APU strategy is the right strategy, and we need to get more of the applications taking advantage of the APUs over time.

Steven Eliscu - UBS Investment Bank, Research DivisionWhen do you -- just as a final follow-up, when do you think that will show up in the average selling price data?

Lisa T. Su - Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Business UnitWe continue to work on sort of the APU evolution over time.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/934...arnings-call-transcript?page=5&p=qanda&l=last

 

[2is]

ARM is already some competition, higher price points would be risky for Intel... they are already making some serious money, higher price points, or lack of innovation could have a big negative impact for them (reduced interest + the growing power of the ARM CPUs)...
and I don't see AMD out of the PC market anytime soon...

3 consoles, that's probably way over 100mi units over a few years, it can't be bad...
AMD's way to respond to the new, lower profits is reducing costs it seems...
that's what they are talking about on the article...

I didn't say its bad, I said its not enough.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

if they can win the 3 consoles...

Beat me to it, the rumours seem to be they have the Xbox and Playstation GPU contracts under their belt, they could make some serious cash there if they play it right, part of the PC decline is mobile but a large part of that is cheap consoles.