AMD to Cut 5% of Workforce

[estarkey7]

Laying off 500 people means saving $56M? WTF?

$100,000 x .6 (for benefits and taxes) x 500 + $100,000 x 500 = ~ 50,000,000

 

[Phynaz]

I would say Chrysler and General Motors prove that a structured bankruptcy is a great way to rebuild profitability.

If you look closer, neither of those companies exist any longer.

Anyway, isn't that what I just called for?

 

[mrmt]

Are you saying I have made those claims!? Because I have not.

Nope, but since you brought the subject your claims were that AMD was increasing the CPU performance faster than Intel and that AMD, and you were expecting Steamroller and Excavator 8C chips with close to Haswell-E performance.

 

[frozentundra123456]

If you look closer, neither of those companies exist any longer.

Anyway, isn't that what I just called for?

Huh???? Or maybe I am misunderstanding your post, but GM and Chrysler are both very much alive, although they justifiably very much simplified their product lines to eliminate redundant models.

GM

Chrysler

As a matter of fact, I think GM was a perfect example of a danger of what intel is doing. They had a huge number of models, so many that all it did was raise costs and confuse the consumer. I think Intel with trying to segment the market by making so many different products is in danger of doing the same thing.

 

[dark zero]

As a matter of fact, I think GM was a perfect example of a danger of what intel is doing. They had a huge number of models, so many that all it did was raise costs and confuse the consumer. I think Intel with trying to segment the market by making so many different products is in danger of doing the same thing.

Big example?
Celeron and Pentium brand..

If Intel were smart, they could ditch the Big Core Celeron and put it only exclusive on Atoms. And create the Atom X as the bigger tier.

 

[Fjodor2001]

And he seems to have forgotten how wonderful Bulldozer would be, or how Steamroller and Excavator would bring AMD back to the game, or how Mullins would storm the tablet market... Oh, the wonders of selective amnesia.

Are you saying I have made those claims!? Because I have not.

Nope

So why did you say or insinuate that to begin with!?

you were expecting Steamroller and Excavator 8C chips with close to Haswell-E performance.

What!? I have certainly not claimed that. Can you please stop making up lies?

 

[Fjodor2001]

http://wccftech.com/amd-announces-restructuring-plan-cut-5-workforce/

Restructuring Business And Cutting 5% Of Workforce Whilst Preserving Engineering Talent

AMD announced a restructuring plan yesterday to cut about 5% of its global workfroce and outsource certain operations in a bid to cut costs.
In addition to the reduction of the company’s global workforce, AMD has also revealed that it will consolidate a number of real-estate facilities, outsource certain application development and IT services, restructure the Eneterprise Embedded and Semi-custom business unit (EESC) as well as task a couple of veteran AMD executives to head two vital regional operations.

According Drew Prairie, director of corporate communications at AMD the actions do not involve AMD’s drivers teams or AMD’s globally deployed product design and engineering teams. The actions were carefully considered in an effort to protect the company’s roadmaps, engineering talent and product design capabilities.

So it shouldn't affect AMD's R&D.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Ye and PR is always truthful.

 

[mrmt]

What!? I have certainly not claimed that. Can you please stop making up lies?

Too expensive, and too late for that price and process node. I'd like to see an AMD Kaveri/Excavator based 8 core CPU instead, with close to Haswell-E performance at $500 or so.

I'm glad you artfully edited the part where I mentioned your talk about AMD closing the CPU performance gap with Intel.

 

[mrmt]

http://wccftech.com/amd-announces-restructuring-plan-cut-5-workforce/



So it shouldn't affect AMD's R&D.

Last time the cuts were squarely aimed at R&D, but they said that the cuts were mostly related to marketing and sales, so I would suggest a wait-and-see approach. But to be fair with them, cutting sales and marketing team isn't too far fetched this time, as AMD salesmen won't have much to do in the next few quarters.

Did you notice how low AMD went? They bother to announce 16 million in annual savings and send their top PR man to tap dance in front of the press. AMD is really scrapping the bottom of the barrel. I doubt that these 16 million are worth the morale hit it will give for the rest of the people staying.

 

[Phynaz]

Huh???? Or maybe I am misunderstanding your post, but GM and Chrysler are both very much alive, although they justifiably very much simplified their product lines to eliminate redundant models.

GM

Chrysler

As a matter of fact, I think GM was a perfect example of a danger of what intel is doing. They had a huge number of models, so many that all it did was raise costs and confuse the consumer. I think Intel with trying to segment the market by making so many different products is in danger of doing the same thing.

A "new" GM as created and all the usefull assets were transferred from the "old" GM. The old GM still exists.

Chrysler was given to Fiat.

We can continue in off topic.

 

[Fjodor2001]

I'm glad you artfully edited the part where I mentioned your talk about AMD closing the CPU performance gap with Intel.

You said that I had written that I was "expecting Steamroller and Excavator 8C chips with close to Haswell-E performance.", which I never have, so it is completely false. I said that I'd like to see it. But that is something completely different. I'd for example also like to see an 8 core Skylake CPU on the mainstream 1151 socket, but I sure don't expect that to happen either.

And no, I've not edited away any part either. The post you linked to doesn't even have any "edit date", so it stands as originally written.

But instead of admitting that your accusations were wrong you come with even more lies. You are so f*cking full of BS it's unbelievable. Not that we all didn't know that already.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Ye and PR is always truthful.

Got some other better source saying otherwise?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Got some other better source saying otherwise?

No, but since it was AMD you layed down flat and instantly accepted the PR as truth. Ironic isn't it.

 

[mrmt]

You said that I had written that I was "expecting Steamroller and Excavator 8C chips with close to Haswell-E performance.", which I never have, so it is completely false. I said that I'd like to see it. But that is something completely different. I'd for example also like to see an 8 core Skylake CPU on the mainstream 1151 socket, but I sure don't expect that to happen either.

Yes, you were expecting. And you said that AMD was closing the CPU gap:

But it's not like AMD will be sitting still on the GPU front either.

Also, AMD is closing the CPU performance gap to Intel, and is delivering CPU performance advances at a faster pace currently. Looking forward to Broadwell vs Excavator that trend looks to continue.

So given your assumption at the time, it made sense to expect Excavator and Steamroller to compete against Intel E-series.

 

[Fjodor2001]

No, but since it was AMD you layed down flat and instantly accepted the PR as truth. Ironic isn't it.

I quoted the article. Got any problem with that? And are you be default questioning anything that a company communicates to the public!? I've never seen you do that with Intel.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Yes, you were expecting.

Not at all, I never said that. Again, I said what I'd "like" to see, not "expect". Just read the quote you quoted yourself FFS!

So given your assumption at the time, it made sense to expect Excavator and Steamroller to compete against Intel E-series.

Saying that AMD is improving CPU performance at a more rapid pace than Intel is not the same thing as saying that Excavator/Steamroller will be as fast as Haswell-E. They are starting from different baselines.

So again, can you please stop lying!!?

 

[DrMrLordX]

http://wccftech.com/amd-announces-restructuring-plan-cut-5-workforce/



So it shouldn't affect AMD's R&D.

Let's hope not. But . . .

Last time the cuts were squarely aimed at R&D, but they said that the cuts were mostly related to marketing and sales, so I would suggest a wait-and-see approach.

The last time cuts came around, a bunch of HSA-related open-source projects either died or finally went under. Stuff like Sumatra (that had actually been stalled since early 2014), Okra, and the lambda branch of aparapi (which had been stalled since summer 2014).

 

[Fjodor2001]

Yup, but this time that said the cuts were not affecting engineers at all, not just "mostly not affecting". If that proves to be incorrect I guess we'll hear about it. But for now I think there are no other better sources stating otherwise.

Also, the R&D functions you mentioned were cut last time does not seem to have been much. Quite peripheral stuff.

 

[mrmt]

Yup, but this time that said the cuts were not affecting engineers at all, not just "mostly not affecting". If that proves to be incorrect I guess we'll hear about it. But for now I think there are no other better sources stating otherwise.

It seems that you are always willing to stand by AMD's words despite the company outright lying to consumers, investors multiple times.

 

[AtenRa]

It seems that you are always willing to stand by AMD's words despite the company outright lying to consumers, investors multiple times.

Intel and NVIDIA has done the same but I havent seen you question their PR statements

 

[Phynaz]

ADF is trying to deflect again.

 

[alcoholbob]

We have a baller here.

"The company said that it would incur $41 million in restructuring and impairment charges in the third quarter, which would result in savings of approximately $9 million in 2015 and $58 million in 2016."

$58 million / 500 people = estimated average remuneration of $116,000 US

"The best-paying 13 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500, including computer-networking company Juniper Networks (JNPR), Netflix (NFLX) and Yahoo (YHOO), shell out median annual salaries to workers of $115,000, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from Glassdoor.com."

"The U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2014 that: U.S. real (inflation adjusted) median household income was $51,939 in 2013 versus $51,759 in 2012, statistically unchanged."

Ya, so if both the husband and wife worked at AMD, their average household income with benefits would have been $232,000 US. Last time I checked that's easily top 5% of all US households.

Wow, so poorly paid. I think you are confusing AMD with McDonalds or something. :whiste:

I think you're forgetting cost of living. $232k is great and all but about 35% of their post-tax income would be dedicated just for rent if they lived in a 2 bedroom apartment locally

 

[DrMrLordX]

Also, the R&D functions you mentioned were cut last time does not seem to have been much. Quite peripheral stuff.

It depends on your perspective as to whether or not those projects were "peripheral stuff". Okra and Sumatra were on the vanguard of the HSA effort. Sumatra, had it worked out, would have made fine-grain SVM GPGPU "easy" for the everyday Java programmer. aparapi-lambda was going in the same direction. There are/were other tools for other programming languages. The HSA branch of GCC is still going so far as I know, though at a snail's pace . . . I really need to play with that some more.

Regardless, being able to adapt even a quarter of the FP-heavy apps/games out there to GPGPU-friendly coding practices would have been a huge step forward for Kaveri. Even getting those tools deployed late would have been a boon for AMD. When those projects went up in smoke, it was a big loss.

 

[Spungo]

I'm not sure why AMD's x86 division still exists. They're about 5 years behind Intel, and Intel has unlimited money to throw into R&D.

AMD is still fairly competitive in the GPU market, so that might be something to shoot for. The GPU market could be huge if AMD and Nvidia continue to work closely with software developers like Oracle (Java), Microsoft (. NET), Adobe, and Autodesk to put as much work on the GPU as possible. The big money is always made by selling products that can be used to make money for the customer. Don't tell me why I should buy an $800 video card for games. I will never pay that for games. Tell me about an $800 video card that makes me twice as productive at work, makes my work higher quality, and lowers the cost of doing business. The full version of AutoCAD costs about $5000 per computer, and companies are willing to pay that because the software is used to generate positive cash flow. Those same companies will gladly pay $5000 for a video card if it can be used to generate positive cash flow. That's your target market - people who want your products so they can make money.