New AMD CIO

[Viditor]

Businesswire

"AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the appointment of Ahmed Mahmoud as CIO. He brings more than 20 years of enterprise information technology (IT) leadership experience, most recently as vice president of IT at Dell. Mahmoud will be responsible for managing the company?s global technology infrastructure, and will play a key role ensuring that AMD continues to set an example of commercial computing excellence"

"Mahmoud joins the company after 13 years at Dell. During his time there, he led a series of transformational efforts across its data warehousing, virtual storefront, manufacturing, supply chain and corporate computing operations"

 

[Idontcare]

Good for AMD. Now if they could hire someone who has extensive experience inside Apple's decision making ranks then they'd start to get some inhouse knowledge on what edge they need to crack more OEM's.

 

[v8envy]

You know, at first I was all like 'Oh BFD, the CIO just worries about which version of XP the secretaries run on their desktop' but you've got a good point. With his experience of supply chain integration at Dell he may bring the right experience to AMD -- they could put the spin of 'filling orders for newer CPU models to your door faster even if we can't do Intel volume' to OEMs on things.

Not so important for the razor thin margin huge volume bottom of the barrel niche they're in now, but it'll certainly come in handy if they ever claw their way back up to the high margin high end parts.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: v8envy
You know, at first I was all like 'Oh BFD, the CIO just worries about which version of XP the secretaries run on their desktop' but you've got a good point. With his experience of supply chain integration at Dell he may bring the right experience to AMD -- they could put the spin of 'filling orders for newer CPU models to your door faster even if we can't do Intel volume' to OEMs on things.

Not so important for the razor thin margin huge volume bottom of the barrel niche they're in now, but it'll certainly come in handy if they ever claw their way back up to the high margin high end parts.

A good point.
As an example of how this has been a big weakness for AMD, look back at their sales in Q4 06 and Q1 07...that was probably the biggest supply chain screwup I've seen by any company I follow.

 

[Idontcare]

I've always believed the quickest way to undermining the integrity of your business model is to layoff reams and reams of the very people who make your business model happen every business day...because those people then have no choice but to go and get jobs with the competition (what else do they know to do?) and in 2 years you are competing with your own business model.

Take google and microsoft...the best thing for either at this point in time is for the other to layoff 5000 employees. They'll get more info about their competitors best practices by hiring 1000 of them versus anything they might get from the finest in illegal corporate espionage.

 

[SickBeast]

What's a "CIO"?

I always thought the problem with AMD was their CEO Hector Ruiz.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
What's a "CIO"?

I always thought the problem with AMD was their CEO Hector Ruiz.

Well Jerry Sanders was no Andy Grove either. AMD has yet to experience leadership at the helm IMO.

Hector hasn't done anything that Jerry didn't already set in motion for Dirk Meyer to carry out. Hector is kinda turning out to be AMD's Craig Barret.

Personally I can't wait to see what Dirk does for the company. Dirk is more of like Paul Otellini's peer in capabilities, so it will be interesting to see what Dirk brings to bear once he is at the helm. Otellini has served Intel well.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
I've always believed the quickest way to undermining the integrity of your business model is to layoff reams and reams of the very people who make your business model happen every business day...because those people then have no choice but to go and get jobs with the competition (what else do they know to do?) and in 2 years you are competing with your own business model.

Take google and microsoft...the best thing for either at this point in time is for the other to layoff 5000 employees. They'll get more info about their competitors best practices by hiring 1000 of them versus anything they might get from the finest in illegal corporate espionage.

I'm not sure if you have a point there m8, but this is the second high level person from Dell to join AMD. The first was Morton L. Topfer who had been Michael Dell's co-Chairman at Dell.
The speculation is that this is what led to Hector being able to finally crack Dell, as well as a lot of inside info pertaining to the anti-trust decision. Remember that Topfer joined AMD just 5 months before the suit was filed...and if anyone knows where the bodies are buried, he does.

Edit: SickBeast, CIO = Chief Information Officer

 

[v8envy]

Microsoft is pretty lean on talent these days, or so I hear. It's becoming a management-heavy inverse pyramid using contractors for the heavy lifting. I doubt google would get much out of hiring 1k microsoftites today. I knew dozens of highly talented people working at MS from the late 80s to early 00s. All but one (who is back as a contractor) are gone now, having fled in the past 2-3 years. And each one had the same story to tell -- bloating and rising incompetence at the middle management and up level lowering productivity and driving out the better producers.

As far as AMDs supply chain screwup in late 06/early 07 -- I doubt better b2b tools would have helped. It was caused by earlier in the year when AMD was selling every chip they could make due to lack of competition from Intel. After Dell got on board the retail channel was absolutely starved for product. By the time AMD got the capacity and gave the retail channel the chips they were screaming for just a quarter earlier it was too late. Nobody could move that inventory with customers demanding Intel's products instead, so AMD got stuck with what they produced based on projected demand.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I always thought the problem with AMD was their CEO Hector Ruiz.

And you were right. Nothing has good has happened since he started bilking them out of all of their profits. Well, nothing that he was actually reponsible for, at least. If I were an AMD shareholder, I would already have lead a march to Sunnyvale, CA, demanding his resignation/firing. In the future, when one person completely runs a company into the ground, people will say that company got "Ruiz'd".

 

[TheJian]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I always thought the problem with AMD was their CEO Hector Ruiz.

And you were right. Nothing has good has happened since he started bilking them out of all of their profits. Well, nothing that he was actually reponsible for, at least. If I were an AMD shareholder, I would already have lead a march to Sunnyvale, CA, demanding his resignation/firing. In the future, when one person completely runs a company into the ground, people will say that company got "Ruiz'd".

Jim Cramer has Ruiz on his wall of shame

He has to go. Bring back Jerry!

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I always thought the problem with AMD was their CEO Hector Ruiz.

And you were right. Nothing has good has happened since he started bilking them out of all of their profits. Well, nothing that he was actually reponsible for, at least. If I were an AMD shareholder, I would already have lead a march to Sunnyvale, CA, demanding his resignation/firing. In the future, when one person completely runs a company into the ground, people will say that company got "Ruiz'd".

Engineering isn't something you can create on command.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: TheJian

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I always thought the problem with AMD was their CEO Hector Ruiz.

And you were right. Nothing has good has happened since he started bilking them out of all of their profits. Well, nothing that he was actually reponsible for, at least. If I were an AMD shareholder, I would already have lead a march to Sunnyvale, CA, demanding his resignation/firing. In the future, when one person completely runs a company into the ground, people will say that company got "Ruiz'd".

Jim Cramer has Ruiz on his wall of shame

He has to go. Bring back Jerry!

I remember watching the episode in 2004 or 2005 where Cramer admitted to being a decade long Intel bull but had to finally acknowledge they were beat and he was going long on AMD in his portfolio and dropping his Intel holdings.

I still marvel at the fact this guy Ruiz only accomplishment in life had been to ride Motorolo down into the crapper in the late 90's and Sanders comes along and says "Hells yeah, of all the candidates in this industry this is THE man I want to be my successor!".

You can blame Ruiz for AMD's folies, but iIMO Ruiz has done nothing more than operate at his true capacity. He just never had much of it. The reality is AMD got Sander'ed because it was Jerry's responsibility to ensure an appropriately talented individual was selected to lead the helm of S.S. AMD.

Sanders did a truly superb job in selecting Ruiz, if his goal was to not be shown up by his own replacement.

 

[v8envy]

Nothing to do with the OP, but I keep boggling every time I read quotes by Hector. Paraphrased:

"Yeah, I overpaid bigtime for ATI, to the tune of 3.2B too much. Meh."

"We're losing market share to Intel because they're an illegal monopolist, not because our products are uncompetitive."

"I can't understand how my stock could be worth 50% less now than a few weeks ago." "Stock prices are like the weather, they're hard to predict."

"There's talk of a recession, but it won't affect us." <-- this one is a whopper at http://www.itp.net/news/509257...hairman-and-ceo-of-amd -- Earth to CEO, corporate spending is driven by the broad economy. When businesses see leaner times ahead the first thing they ratchet down is new capital expenditures, of which desktops are a part. Smaller overall market == smaller sales unless you grow your share of the pie. 6% of us home loans are delinquent, and you can bet those guys aren't looking to buy a new Phenom right now. If you don't ratchet down with a recession coming down the pike you're going to be up to your ears in unsold&unwanted inventory again.

This guy just blurts stuff out. I hope he doesn't believe most of what is coming out of his mouth and is just saying these things for comedic value. The guy at the helm saying this sort of garbage makes me think the entire leadership team is utterly clueless. I trade purely on technicals, but if I was an investor I'd be yelling "SELL SELL SELL" at my broker every time Hector agreed to an interview.

And the AMD board: "Our CEO is the highest paid of any of his peers in the semiconductor industry. Dude, you can't retain a person of his caliber by paying him in rapidly tanking stock."

Blaming Sanders for picking this 'gem in the rough' is a bit of a stretch though. He wasn't the only person involved in the decision making. I've made some *extremely* bad hiring decisions in the past as well. Everyone has. The key is rectifying them, not letting them continue because doing otherwise causes undesirable perceptions.

 

[drebo]

"Mahmoud joins the company after 13 years at Dell. During his time there, he led a series of transformational efforts across its data warehousing, virtual storefront, manufacturing, supply chain and corporate computing operations"

I might be impressed, if Dell's website and database backend wasn't absolute garbage.

I swear, 80% of the time, even at off-peak hours, I cannot access my Premier page order history or invoice reports. Not only that, but half the time, I can't even access the Premier page itself!

Not a good spot, imo.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: drebo

"Mahmoud joins the company after 13 years at Dell. During his time there, he led a series of transformational efforts across its data warehousing, virtual storefront, manufacturing, supply chain and corporate computing operations"

I might be impressed, if Dell's website and database backend wasn't absolute garbage.

I swear, 80% of the time, even at off-peak hours, I cannot access my Premier page order history or invoice reports. Not only that, but half the time, I can't even access the Premier page itself!

Not a good spot, imo.

He doesn't have to be "the best"...just needs to merely be "a little better" than the previous CIO.

Of course it would be great if he was the best in the world at doing CIO things...but I can't imagine best-of-breed CIO's are attracted to working in the semiconductor industry. Banking and medical is probably far more lucrative and less cyclical.