Well This Can't Be Good: AMD Axes Carrell Killebrew & Other Employees

[zlejedi]

nVidia has tighter control of it's board makers and has created enough brand loyalty to muscle itself some nice margins. Being able to lock out a company from guaranteed sales can be quite a strong negotiating tool, just look at the fate of BFG. No telling if they also get a better deal from TSMC but it would not surprise me if they do.

That and margins on their HPC products are supposedly to thank for balancing out the lower end. You can see AMD has been wanting to get a larger piece of that action, but it requires pretty drastic changes and so they have announced Graphics Core Next as their new architecture.

Well but to get brand loyalty you need to make your current consumers happy.

Which means they are doing something right.

 

[Genx87]

That's the beauty of conjecture -- one may never know. The executives have to actually make the tough decisions.

You made the claim. So what did you mean by it?

 

[SirPauly]

Your opinion on how AMD should of developed Fusion is conjecture; it's an assumption of truth that can't really be disproven.

 

[bryanW1995]

How do you know the break-downs of R&D? You have repeated this a few times; is there a link or data for your claim?

I don't have any links to back that statement up, but I've read it several times on different websites over the years.

 

[bryanW1995]

What a load of marketing/MBA bullshit. Translation: Intel has crushed us like a bug in several of our previous key markets, partly because of our faulty execution, and some of our overpaid Prima Donna engineers must pay the price. We need to realign our company away from spaces in which Intel competes or we will be bankrupt within two years.

That's the story. "Unlock the efficiencies." "Capture the trends." The kind of talk that spawned Occupy Wall Street.

RR is a very sharp guy. Maybe AMD wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if they'd had more people like him in the past. And maybe those OWS people should spend more time working on a masters degree and less time carrying signs in front of legitimate businesses.

 

[bryanW1995]

As far as I remember it was a MASSIVE improvement over the HD 2900, enough for it to be very competitive with the 8800 series. In fact I think its the reason that Nvidia brought out the 8800GT at the price they did.

3870 was a minor performance improvement over 2900xt (5-10% on average), but it was a HUGE improvement in power/heat/noise. They followed that strategy with 4xxx, 5xxx, 6xxx, and, apparently 7xxx, and Killebrew was the champion of that failed strategy, so he got the ax. That's business.

I meant massive improvement by way of slightly improved AA, smaller die, massively reduced power consumption and heat production. Yeah it wasnt faster - in fact I think it had a slower memory bus - but it was a much better card all the same.

EDIT: See here. It was competitive with the 8800GT on price.

I owned a 3870 (I liked the 2 slot cooler design b/c it was much quieter than 8800gt's one slot design). It was a small bit faster as I mentioned, even though it did have the smaller ring bus.

 

[Genx87]

Your opinion on how AMD should of developed Fusion is conjecture; it's an assumption of truth that can't really be disproven.

Of course it is conjecture. Most things on this board are, but so what?

I am asking you what differentiation fusion brings to the table that couldnt had been done for a lot cheaper.

 

[Dribble]

Actually AMD has gained ground in the workstation market:



http://www.jonpeddie.com/publications/workstation_report/

Last quarter:



http://seekingalpha.com/article/303...sses-q3-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript

The doom-and-gloom is not there.

Yes, the workstation market is slightly better but still mostly nvidia.

The server market however is a disaster, 6.5% right now.
http://www.trefis.com/company?hm=AM..._urlid=530922#/AMD/n-0518/0581?c=top&from=rhs

This was meant to be saved by BD (see future), but that's not looking so hopeful right now.

Then you get back to the huge debts and lack of presence in future key markets - doom and gloom seems right on the mark. It was only a year or two ago they were in the top 20 companies most likely to go bust till the MS $1.5 billion payoff. Before that it was the fabs payoff. If they need another billion or two what goes next - ATI?

 

[Idontcare]

Your question exceeded the scope of my knowledge. On the surface, I'll say Apple is on a doom course. In fact, it was at its doom course all along if it was not for Steve Jobs. However, it was not a coincident about Steve's return to Apple. I can't say if there will be another person who is as innovative as, if not better than him, to be the future CEO of Apple, who is as persuasive, if not more, then Steve. In short term, I don't see Apple's existing CEO is that kind of material in my eyes. However, I lack the necessary intel on the internal of Apple to say anything bold.

I hope that I understood your question correctly.

Yeah, that's about the sum of it from my perspective too.

Intel went through a dark period after founder Andy Grove stepped down as well. Barret was not what Intel needed post-Grove. But then Otellini stepped in and we have tick-tock and Sandy Bridge because of it.

Apple needs an Otellini, as does AMD. Let's hope that part of the reason the AMD board of directors took so long to hire a permanent CEO was because they were holding out for an Otellini rather than just settling for anyone who would seemingly take on the job that Dirk felt was worth quitting rather than even attempting.

 

[SirPauly]

Of course it is conjecture. Most things on this board are, but so what?

I am asking you what differentiation fusion brings to the table that couldnt had been done for a lot cheaper.

See the GPU component with Intel offerings.

 

[SirPauly]

Yes, the workstation market is slightly better but still mostly nvidia.

The server market however is a disaster, 6.5% right now.
http://www.trefis.com/company?hm=AM..._urlid=530922#/AMD/n-0518/0581?c=top&from=rhs

This was meant to be saved by BD (see future), but that's not looking so hopeful right now.

Then you get back to the huge debts and lack of presence in future key markets - doom and gloom seems right on the mark. It was only a year or two ago they were in the top 20 companies most likely to go bust till the MS $1.5 billion payoff. Before that it was the fabs payoff. If they need another billion or two what goes next - ATI?

Doom and gloom, to me, no hope of garnering growth and profit. It's been tough going, a hell of a lot of work to do but there is potential here. But, future mistakes may make this company irrelevant, imho.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Speaking of AMD's revenue for graphics. Have anyone accounted for the fact that the total PC marketshare increased significantly since ATI acquisition? The real question is how much their ASPs declined for GPUs during that time, if it did at all.

Volume shipped vs ASPs figure that out.