AMD to Cut 5% of Workforce

[Vortex6700]

Even when AMD had great processors like Athlon XP and hands down superior processors with Athlon 64/X2 for years, their market share never even came close to 50%. Under normal circumstances like the massive swings we see in the GPU market, in an objective market of pure dominance like the A64/X2 series had, Intel's market share should have been < 50%. Pentium 4/D was junk.

I think most people were never realistic about AMD's chances against Intel and once AMD did a leveraged buy-out with ATI, many people thought it was a horrible idea and a death sentence to their CPU/GPU divisions. <br />

I mean how in the world can a company be able to produce world class CPUs and GPUs against 2 leading companies in both of those segments, that have less debt, more financial resources, waaaaaaaaaaaay more attached/loyal customer base?

I mean look at GeForce 5 and 7. Those were garbage series from NV but at no point did we ever see NV's market share drop to 18%. I mean in all honesty GeForce 5 was <i>magnitudes</i> of times worse than AMD's GPU series in the last 3 years. It's not even comparable. Essentially NV's/Intel's brand name and loyalty ensure that even when those firms made mistakes, it wasn't fatal/non-reversible market share loss. With AMD, it basically means they have to beat Intel/NV just to gain market share. That's clearly not the case with Intel and especially not with NV.

I don't know how people still expect Zen to tie or even beat Intel. Did they actually check the market cap of AMD and Intel recently and the number of engineers/employees at both firms? <img src="images/smilies/familiar/biggrin.png" border="0" alt="" title="Biggrin" smilieid="22" class="inlineimg" /><br />

I am trying to understand how that would actually help us, the consumers.

Do you need to be reminded of $649 GTX280 whose priced was chopped off by $150 the day HD4870 came out? What about $650 780 that look like a giant turd the day R9 290 came out for $399. I mean seriously, if you only buy Intel/NV, no problem but having some competitor to NV ensures that prices <i>somewhat</i> stay in the realm of reasonability.

AMD is the only reason Intel needs to make better processors. Watch what happens with 0 competition and wintel plays the Feature-specific game.

Sorry buddy, your cpu doesn't have AVX512+ or GenuineIntel2.0, no autocad for you.

 

[desprado]

AMD is the only reason Intel needs to make better processors. Watch what happens with 0 competition and wintel plays the Feature-specific game.

Sorry buddy, your cpu doesn't have AVX512+ or GenuineIntel2.0, no autocad for you.

It is a dreaming like overclockers dream.There is 0 competition from AMD to Intel since 2013.

 

[redzo]

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

There is the possibility of over payed, incompetent employees. For example: You score a big contract with a customer, customer puts pressure to hire certain people. Most of the time those people are plain incompetent. I believe this is a usual practice for most business.

 

[MrTeal]

There is the possibility of over payed, incompetent employees. For example: You score a big contract with a customer, customer puts pressure to hire certain people. Most of the time those people are plain incompetent. I believe this is a usual practice for most business.

You believe that is the usual practice for most businesses based on what?

 

[desprado]

You believe that is the usual practice for most businesses based on what?

Mostly practiced by bankrupt companies.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Do you realize how assassinate it sounds if you met 2x AMD engineers that were husband and wife and made $232,000 in total comp with medical/dental benefits and you said to them that they are poorly paid? 95%+ of American households would love to be in that position -- as of 2012, to be in the top 4%, you'd have to make $207,000 US in household comp. Considering wages have hardly changed in the last 3 years, this point still holds. To say that $114-116K US total comp per person is poorly paid is almost everyone else is in the world poorly paid.

I didn't say that AMD engineers are poorly paid.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Do you realize how assassinate it sounds if you met 2x AMD engineers that were husband and wife and made $232,000 in total comp with medical/dental benefits and you said to them that they are poorly paid?

I'm not a hardware engineer, I'm a software engineer - and I know what the salaries are at many of the larger companies in my area are (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, F5 and soon Apple - to name a few.) If 112k is their benefits + salary + other costs (computers they use, office space, morale budget and so forth) then their actual salary is PROBABLY closer to 50k...which is *EXCEPTIONALLY* low for the amount of expertise needed. So either there are a lot of janitors in there, or you're paid shit at AMD.

There is the possibility of over payed, incompetent employees. For example: You score a big contract with a customer, customer puts pressure to hire certain people. Most of the time those people are plain incompetent. I believe this is a usual practice for most business.

Again, in this industry, unless you mean overpaid janitors - a 50k salary isn't "overpaid" - it's severely underpaid. HR people in my area make around 50k for comparison...

 

[mrmt]

I'm not a hardware engineer, I'm a software engineer - and I know what the salaries are at many of the larger companies in my area are (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, F5 and soon Apple - to name a few.) If 112k is their benefits + salary + other costs (computers they use, office space, morale budget and so forth) then their actual salary is PROBABLY closer to 50k...which is *EXCEPTIONALLY* low for the amount of expertise needed. So either there are a lot of janitors in there, or you're paid shit at AMD.

They seem to be firing a lot of sales personnel, which have variable compensation that AMD would not be able to account as savings when firing them, and some of the people being fired seem to be from outside the US, so that amount of compensation might not be that low.

Btw, so much for quiet period.

 

[Erenhardt]

AMD just needs to file already. Get the pain over with.

Nope, you will suffer a little bit longer...

 

[mrmt]

Even when AMD had great processors like Athlon XP and hands down superior processors with Athlon 64/X2 for years, their market share never even came close to 50%. Under normal circumstances like the massive swings we see in the GPU market, in an objective market of pure dominance like the A64/X2 series had, Intel's market share should have been < 50%. Pentium 4/D was junk.

You talk like Intel and AMD were equals and the only difference between them was the tattered brand.

AMD never had the manufacturing capacity to supply 50% of the market, but they had a blast selling 512k of cache for $500. AMD was basically supply-constrained during a significant part of K8 life, plus they didn't have a good notebook line up at the time, which reduced leverage with OEMs. So no, AMD shouldn't have 50% of the market as it was a physical impossibility and no OEM would give preferential treatment for AMD because that would mean forfeiting the notebook market.

 

[Fjodor2001]

You should be flattered. At least he edit his signature from before. Haha. Made me think he just has various quotes of yours posted all over his desktop. HAHA.

You just have to use the forum search and you'll find a graveyard of failed Intel-fanboy predictions. :biggrin:

 

[ShintaiDK]

I am trying to understand how that would actually help us, the consumers.

Because they can use it to restructure the company and get rid of a lot of dead weight. Including the WSA.

Nope, you will suffer a little bit longer...

Its AMD suffering more than they have to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapt...es_Code#Features_of_Chapter_11_reorganization

 

[desprado]

You just have to use the forum search and you'll find a graveyard of failed Intel-fanboy predictions. :biggrin:

At least he did not predict Fury X will be 20% or 40% faster than GTX Titan X or it will be an overclockers dream.

 

[mrmt]

At least he did not predict Fury X will be 20% or 40% faster than GTX Titan X or it will overclockers dream.

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.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I agree. It'd be nice if management weren't obviously looting the ship as it sinks, though.

Are they? Recently there was news of top execs/members of the BoD tanking up on cheap AMD shares. It seems to me they were doubling down on their own company's success.

Has anyone been able to sort out what functions were cut? How many people did AMD have that they could possibly stand to lose? Were they all in sales?

 

[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.

 

[paffinity]

Another year, another layoff.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

They are getting a severance, no? Not all of them are going to be that lucky...

That's likely what the $42 million charge is this year - severance and additional fees.

 

[dark zero]

AMD is deader than dead, which is good since those annoying guys are práctically ruining the market.

We need to purge the gaming industry. To get rid of those rat Kids (those kid noobs Who are ruining the video game industry and called like that in Latin América.) by increasing dramatically the prices of the.products... And by forcing the people to move to the Atoms once at all.

 

[Exophase]

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:

$116k in expenses to the company includes benefits, employer-side taxes, unemployment insurance, and many other sources of overhead (office space and supplies, travel/per-diem, etc). That $116k can very easily reflect less than $70k in salary.

 

[Arachnotronic]

$116k in expenses to the company includes benefits, employer-side taxes, unemployment insurance, and many other sources of overhead (office space and supplies, travel/per-diem, etc). That $116k can very easily reflect less than $70k in salary.

I was once told that a good rule of thumb to figure out how much an employee costs a company is to take her/his salary and double it.

 

[Exophase]

I was once told that a good rule of thumb to figure out how much an employee costs a company is to take her/his salary and double it.

What kind of industry did this apply to? A lot of overhead doesn't scale linearly or at all with salary so that factor will go down with higher paid jobs.

 

[myocardia]

A lot of overhead doesn't scale linearly or at all with salary so that factor will go down with higher paid jobs.

Not really. $30-40k/year employees don't get expense accounts, nor do they get a Porsche/Mercedes/Lexus leased for them, along with the expenses associated, like having to insure said car, along with mileage and repair charges, et al. Most companies also pay for up to a certain amount of fuel per week/month as well.

 

[Exophase]

Not really. $30-40k/year employees don't get expense accounts, nor do they get a Porsche/Mercedes/Lexus leased for them, along with the expenses associated, like having to insure said car, along with mileage and repair charges, et al. Most companies also pay for up to a certain amount of fuel per week/month as well.

Neither do people making $70k a year, generally. A lot of the overhead costs for the $40k employee will be similar to the $70k employee.

 

[myocardia]

Neither do people making $70k a year, generally. A lot of the overhead costs for the $40k employee will be similar to the $70k employee.

That's probably true, but I only took issue with the blanket statement that I quoted, that didn't have any caveats, or a maximum salary to which it applied.