Eric Demers Leaving AMD

[n0x1ous]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5538/amds-eric-demers-is-leaving-the-company

Wasn't he one of their best graphics guys? Article states he's not going to Intel or Nvidia so will be interesting to see what he does next.

 

[blackened23]

I wonder if Rory Reid is cleaning house

 

[n0x1ous]

I wonder if Rory Reid is cleaning house

sure seems that way, but the GPU division was the bright spot so it seems odd. Maybe he just wants "his" guys.

 

[blackened23]

sure seems that way, but the GPU division was the bright spot so it seems odd. Maybe he just wants "his" guys.

AMD definitely needed a shake up after '11, but I wonder if the wrong guys are leaving. Maybe he left on his own will who knows....seems like a lot of senior mgt seems to be departing, strange.

 

[superjim]

AMD definitely needed a shake up after '11, but I wonder if the wrong guys are leaving. Maybe he left on his own will who knows....seems like a lot of senior mgt seems to be departing, strange.

If a company does poorly consistently it's the senior management that should leave. Too many companies axe the little guys, the worker bees who have no say in the direction of a project and expect different results with the same leaders. Genius.

 

[janas19]

The slide says AMD wants to "differentiate" themselves with low power products. Just how do they plan on doing that, exactly? Intel's processes are already at 22nm and not slowing down. AMD needs to focus on more performance for the buck.

 

[notty22]

This was reported the other day at FUDzilla
AMD sales chief jumps ship

Update: Emilio Ghilardi is out, sacked apparently
AMD announced Tuesday that long-time chief sales officer and senior vice president Emilio Ghilardi was leaving the company.

The announcement comes after a series of changes at the top and an unparalleled management reshuffle at AMD over the past several quarters. AMD CEO Rory Read will take over Ghilardi’s responsibilities and serve as interim sales chief until a replacement is found.

No reason for Ghilardi’s departure was given and his resignation is effective immediately.

Update:

Ghilardi was apparently let go and he did not leave the company to "pursue new opportunities" as AMD claims. John Byrne, Corporate Vice President Sales Americas Mega Region and Darren Grasby, Corporate Vice President Sales will assist Read in the interim. Both are ex-ATI chaps and they are among the few former ATI execs who are still part of AMD's top management.

 

[blackened23]

The slide says AMD wants to "differentiate" themselves with low power products. Just how do they plan on doing that, exactly? Intel's processes are already at 22nm and not slowing down. AMD needs to focus on more performance for the buck.

First of all, their GPU strategy isn't changed. They will continue pursuing high performance discrete GPUs, as their strategy revolves around it (APUs are dependant on graphics power)

Secondly, to answer your question, AMD cannot compete with intel performance wise b/c intel has way more r+d money. Nobody can compete with them. AMD is going for the mobile market with their APU's, a sector they did very well in last year -- they can beat intel in this area. Their APU's offer way higher bang for the buck and intel , and have better iGPU performance.

Lastly, notty, you're linking a different person. I hesitate to read into this but AMD executed horrible on the CPU front last year, and they languished on their supply chain. This guy in sales probably deserved to be let go, their sales / marketing / execution has been terrible for some time in the cpu division.

 

[Genx87]

AMD definitely needed a shake up after '11, but I wonder if the wrong guys are leaving. Maybe he left on his own will who knows....seems like a lot of senior mgt seems to be departing, strange.

The senior management has performend horribly over the past 6 years. They should go.

 

[blackened23]

The senior management has performend horribly over the past 6 years. They should go.

I don't disagree, although their GPU division has done very well over the past few years. I hate reading into things too much, but there's no doubt that their supply chain execution was outright terrible for the past few years in their CPU division, so you're right.

 

[tviceman]

My money has him going to Apple. They are supposedly trying to develop their own GPU and God knows they have enough cash to hire just about anyone.

 

[notty22]

Lastly, notty, you're linking a different person. I hesitate to read into this but AMD executed horrible on the CPU front last year, and they languished on their supply chain. This guy in sales probably deserved to be let go, their sales / marketing / execution has been terrible for some time in the cpu division.

Thank You Captain Obvious. I felt it was pertinent. What did you think, I was saying Anand was scooped ?

 

[Genx87]

I don't disagree, although their GPU division has done very well over the past few years. I hate reading into things too much, but there's no doubt that their supply chain execution was outright terrible for the past few years in their CPU division, so you're right.

Supply chain execution is also terrible in the GPU division. They had shortages all summer into the fall with 6800 parts. And their new flagship is supply constrained. Just like the last time they had a performance advantage 2.5 years ago with the 5800 series. It took them over 6 months to ramp production and in the mean time let Nvidia back into the game and gained little at the end of the day. The pattern is back with the 7900 series.

The GPU division compared to the CPU division has done well. But they failed to gain marktshare and profits at Nvidia's expense long term with the advantages they had with the 5800 series.

 

[Olikan]

The GPU division compared to the CPU division has done well. But they failed to gain marktshare and profits at Nvidia's expense long term with the advantages they had with the 5800 series.

IIRC, ati\amd never had so much market share as is now

 

[blackened23]

IIRC, ati\amd never had so much market share as is now

Yeah, AMD is #2 behind intel in terms of overall graphics market share, while intel has something ridiculous like 60%. Nvidia does have higher discrete market share, however.

 

[AnandThenMan]

AMD's graphics division has been running like clockwork the last few generations, so you can't say Eric is leaving due to lack of execution. Something else is going on.

 

[SirPauly]

I liked SirEric.

Asked him a question about the n-patches and the 9700 Pro and without PR speak offering how the CPU was doing the TruForm.

Tried to talk to him about adding super-sampled for ATI hardware and said he was all for it. With eventually some Super-AA hybrid modes to eventually offering support with the 5XXX series.

Remember him being so kiddish and excited about Oblivion with HDR+AA; it was fun to see engineers act like gamers at times.

 

[formulav8]

Its looks like he is the one that initiated the leave. (Probably $ or conflict)

Also, even though AMD said they still want High performance, I think they will eventually get out of our segment and do APU type products only. So it may end up being nvidia only in the not to distant future. Low Power and APU's is the future.

 

[AtenRa]

Its looks like he is the one that initiated the leave. (Probably $ or conflict)

Also, even though AMD said they still want High performance, I think they will eventually get out of our segment and do APU type products only. So it may end up being nvidia only in the not to distant future. Low Power and APU's is the future.

Not according to this, unless they talking about APU graphics only, which i doubt.

 

[Idontcare]

sure seems that way, but the GPU division was the bright spot so it seems odd. Maybe he just wants "his" guys.

Bright spot in terms of not losing money I suppose, but they did cost AMD shareholders a pretty penny in write-downs for failing to live up to their previously unlocked shareholder value.

 

[blackened23]

Its looks like he is the one that initiated the leave. (Probably $ or conflict)

Also, even though AMD said they still want High performance, I think they will eventually get out of our segment and do APU type products only. So it may end up being nvidia only in the not to distant future. Low Power and APU's is the future.

This is not true. GPU business is vital to AMD because they use their discrete graphics technology in *all* of their products. At their investor meeting they basically stated that they intent to remain extremely competetive in discrete graphics.

This makes sense because they cannot produce APU's without the tech they have from discrete graphics. All of their products tie in with graphics, which is basically what was stated at their financial results announcement.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

If a company does poorly consistently it's the senior management that should leave. Too many companies axe the little guys, the worker bees who have no say in the direction of a project and expect different results with the same leaders. Genius.

That's quite factual; and I must say that this new CEO is doing cuts on AMD staff almost as fast as the cuts that are made by the UK coalition. [Only a joke is intended - and what they're doing isn't necessarily a bad thing].

 

[formulav8]

You don't have to have high-end $600 video cards to develop new tech/ip, ect... So yes they could concede the high-end sector and focus on the low powered and apu sector. And I never said anything about getting out of discreet gpu's. Lower powered/efficient and apu's could very well be the future for AMD. This is nothing but opinion anyways :\

 

[blackened23]

You don't have to have high-end $600 video cards to develop new tech/ip, ect... So yes they could concede the high-end sector and focus on the low powered and apu sector.

And its still not what they're doing, they stated as such

 

[IlllI]

just curious, does anyone from ATI still work for AMD?