AMD was on top of the world selling every chip they could possibly produce. Then management decides that they could sit back and suck in the riches, putting developments off. The pushed and pushed things out. Their internal timelines such as the node shrink to 65nm was pushed out. AMD was swimming in riches and got drunk on the Athlon success. Pushing off development while intel was pouring in the cash in order to be on top.
AMD underestimated their competitor and was quite arrogant. They had great engineers, the best in the world, but sadly they were not in charge. Many many bad choices hurt AMD. Of course, intel didnt help with their actions but people have to understand that intel done extreme things because AMD chips were in such high demand. Intel was trying to offer too good to be true deals because OEMs would rather have AMD chips. This is a massive achievement. But right in the middle of this huge success, management decided to push out future development. It wasnt long before conroe smashed AMD to fragments. Not only was it bad as, intel had a complete node advantage. Had AMD not pushed off their development and node shrink things would be very very different today. Since Conroe, AMD has been way behind. No longer was their huge demands for the much slower AMD processors. No longer did intel have to try to cut deals to be attractive to OEMs.
All of these things go together. This is besides the ATI acquisition which further contributed to AMD woes. AMD didnt think this through. They must have thought that they could just buy graphics and glue them into their chips with ease. But reality is that all of a sudden, AMD riches went to pennies. AMD graphics could not pay for its ATI acquisition (and still hasnt made enough profit for it). So the debt is piling. Their CPUs were struggling to sell. AMD keeps slipping and slipping.
AMD is still struggling. But its not intels, nvidias, or anyones fault. A lot of bad decisions and bad management. Things dont always go as planned and slip ups happen. But this is more like self-mutilation than a random accident. Can we expect it to ever improve? Especially when the same heads that charged them over the cliff are still in control?
For the record, you could not have found a bigger fanboy for AMD than me. But over the years my frustrations have swelled to disgust. My love was for the talent and heart of AMD, but all that is left is the big heads that run them to ruins. Its a sad place in my heart but i cry no more for them.
There was so much going on that.
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