Which project AMD will have to cancel after the latest cuts

[mrmt]

After the latest round of cuts and lay offs, what do you think it will be the next project that will be axed at AMD?

 

[positivedoppler]

i think mullin and beema has already been cancelled

 

[Abwx]

There should be an option "none" but it s no surprise that there s...none...
And it s not due to AMD not being capable to keep all their current project running, of course...

 

[Enigmoid]

There should be an option "none" but it s no surprise that there s...none...
And it s not due to AMD not being capable to keep all their current project running, of course...

I agree. Poll is slanted from the start.

Rather I believe they will do what any company does in this situation; reduce the scope of projects(s) or extend the development period.

 

[mrmt]

I agree. Poll is slanted from the start.

Rather I believe they will do what any company does in this situation; reduce the scope of projects(s) or extend the development period.

Extend the development period on MPU means you'll lose the relevance timeframe window of the project, not something AMD can afford when their competitors are executing like clock.

Btw, I created the pool after listening to the Q&A. Lisa isn't committing to delivering the current roadmap, she is talking about resource shifts between projects, invariably some project will have to die, just like the Bulldozer servers did.

 

[Abwx]

I agree. Poll is slanted from the start.

Rather I believe they will do what any company does in this situation; reduce the scope of projects(s) or extend the development period.

Or do the cuts mainly in non enginering related dpts.

 

[sandorski]

Project Lose Money. Seemed suspicious at the announcement of it, has proven to be less than ideal as a Marketable Product.

 

[NostaSeronx]

AMD will most likely be delaying Zen and K12. Puma+/Tuned Cortex A57 being canned depends on 20-nm SoC and 20-nm LPM. Graphic Core Next production designs are two steps behind GCN pre-sample designs.

Any upgrades to SeaMicro is unlikely to be stopped.

 

[cbn]

How do folks feel about AMD's Linux graphics drivers with respect to any projects they might cancel?

How much impact on the decision making?

 

[BrightCandle]

I think they will just fall yet further behind on all fronts. Slowing down development, making less progress is the ultimate result I suspect.

It might be a good idea to drop product lines in preference to try and focus their business but I suspect they wont because they feel they need to be in all the markets they are in and be in them potentially not competitively. But I can't see inside AMD and its research and development so I couldn't tell them how to fix their business. I know they are in trouble, I can see how competitive their competitors are and the slim line between success and failure.

 

[DrMrLordX]

AMD's Linux drivers have always scared me a little. All their drivers really need some work right now.

What's gonna take a cut with the layoffs? Hmm. Possibly their entire rebranding division, if we're lucky.

 

[Enigmoid]

Extend the development period on MPU means you'll lose the relevance timeframe window of the project, not something AMD can afford when their competitors are executing like clock.

Btw, I created the pool after listening to the Q&A. Lisa isn't committing to delivering the current roadmap, she is talking about resource shifts between projects, invariably some project will have to die, just like the Bulldozer servers did.

Nevertheless, while implausible (according to you) a general delay of the pipeline is not impossible and should be included.

Personally, the products you mentioned are too integral to the company to be cut completely. Delays and reduction in scope are perfectly possible.

 

[III-V]

Is their marketing department a project? They should cut that.

 

[ClockHound]

Is their marketing department a project? They should cut that.

If true, yes, please. Engineering and marketing are tasks best separated by large tracts of geography and several layers of 'common sense workers'.

Spent a few years working for what was a successful OEM engineering company...and in the heights of their success and excess, they created their own marketing dept and 'brand'. Which led to the depths of failure. In a really short time.

 

[Exophase]

Instead of answering the poll, I'll just rank these by what I find most to least likely to be cut IF a cut is needed:

1) Seamicro servers
2) Puma+
3) Zen
4) K12
5) GCN

But it's not really that much more than an informed guess.

 

[cbn]

AMD's Linux drivers have always scared me a little.

.....And the consumer Cortex A57 APU parts would be using those drivers on Android.

 

[III-V]

.....And the consumer Cortex A57 APU parts would be using those drivers on Android.

Did someone say kernel panic? :awe:

Just kidding.

 

[mistersprinkles]

K12. 100%. AMD can't hope to compete with Intel in the high end X86 market at this point.

 

[NostaSeronx]

K12. 100%. AMD can't hope to compete with Intel in the high end X86 market at this point.

K12 is the custom AArch64/ARMv8 processor.

Zen(AMD64) was first into the development cycle. K12 was second into the development cycle. Ideas that popped up in K12 will be in the 2nd gen Zen core.

Zen and K12 will be using an upgraded version of Puma+/Tuned Cortex A57's, cache coherent Hypertransport-HNC NoC.

 

[escrow4]

Its too late whatever they choose. FX is a failure, APUs are interesting but very niche, server Opterons are MIA, AM3+ is dead in the water, mobile anything is going nowhere fast. This is the beginning of the end.

 

[DrMrLordX]

.....And the consumer Cortex A57 APU parts would be using those drivers on Android.

Fearsome. Still, we're talking about a single target on a (relatively) static platform, so that should make it easier on them to get the driver right. Maybe?

 

[raghu78]

None. Please read the AMD earnings call transcript. The cuts are going to be in the operational side. marketing and sales mostly. Maybe Roy Taylor will have to go first.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/256...u-on-q3-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript

Vivek Arya - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
My question is on the restructuring that you are doing. Which areas will you deep prioritize, given this restructuring? Do you think you can afford to focus on the same number of markets or is it time to narrow the focus?
Lisa Su - President, Director and Chief Executive Officer
Relative to the restructuring, we have been looking at all of our markets across the company and all of the things that we do, both from an engineering side and a go-to-market side. From this standpoint, we are very much protecting the key engineering skills and key engineering investments. But as we look across our businesses and as we diversify from being a pure PC company into much more diversified business, and we found opportunities to streamline particularly on the Computing and Graphics side as we look at our go-to-market and our infrastructure around that.

David Wong - Wells FargoAnd Lisa, you have touched on this, but just to ask the question explicitly, will the restructuring involve discontinuing future development of any specific product line that you know about at the moment?
Lisa Su - President, Director and Chief Executive OfficerYes, David, I think that's really around streamlining our investments and ensuring that we're on the highest growth opportunities. So relative to discontinuing a particular product line, we are not discontinuing a particular product line at this time.

JoAnne Feeney - ABR Investment Strategy
Quick follow-up to that. Just wondering whether there is room in the C&G segment to make the kinds of cuts you need to make to turn that profitable, or if the competitive pressure under is constraining your prices so much and the demands on the research side are so much that you really in a difficult spot to cut those cost and raise that operating profit. Can you speak to how you would get that done?
Devinder Kumar - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial OfficerYes, I can address that and I'll ask Lisa to address how we are -- this is really methodical. I think you probably recall, and maybe that's what you're referring to couple of years ago when the PC market went down pretty dramatically in the 2012 timeframe, we did reset restructure. And I would say having participated in both of those at the CFO level, those were more across the board, but these are very targeted and very methodical, protecting the core technology, as I talked about, and making sure that we do not in any way disrupt the future technology and making sure that the long-term growth at the company level is assured and protecting the technology. Lisa, you want to comment on that.
Lisa Su - President, Director and Chief Executive OfficerYes, JoAnne, this is a really important point. So when you look our strategy and the model that we are trying to build, it really is around developing leadership IP, so that's core CPU and graphics IPs, it's actually used across both segments, and that's very critical and it's being entirely protected in this restructuring action.

When we look specifically in the Computing and Graphics business, relative to the overall infrastructure that was built around these two businesses, the businesses are smaller than they were before, and so there is significant opportunity to streamline how we operate, how we go to market, and just the overall infrastructure that we have. So from an R&D standpoint, very clear that those are the most important investments, and ones that will fuel long-term growth in both segments. And so those will continue. And we do believe that there is opportunity to streamline in the operational side.

 

[nenforcer]

I bet they are cancelling the 1090 FX and 1090X chipsets for the AM3+ socket platform.

 

[mrmt]

Instead of answering the poll, I'll just rank these by what I find most to least likely to be cut IF a cut is needed

AMD has been through very hard times as of lately, and they have shed all the fat in the lost cuts. Unless AMD management can convince the rest of the people to work 7% less, I don't think they can keep the current pipeline, and given their current market position (losing to Intel, having to rush to the ARM ecosystem ASAP, etc), I don't think they can afford a delay.

 

[mrmt]

None. Please read the AMD earnings call transcript. The cuts are going to be in the operational side. marketing and sales mostly. Maybe Roy Taylor will have to go first.

David Wong - Wells Fargo
And Lisa, you have touched on this, but just to ask the question explicitly, will the restructuring involve discontinuing future development of any specific product line that you know about at the moment?

Lisa Su - President, Director and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, David, I think that's really around streamlining our investments and ensuring that we're on the highest growth opportunities. So relative to discontinuing a particular product line, we are not discontinuing a particular product line at this time.

Lisa Su isn't betting on making people work 7% harder, there will be impacts on products as resources will be shuffled to "highest growth opportunities", she just didn't commit itself to some cut right now, but it's too early to do so anyway. Once one of these not-highest-growth-opportunities lose their relevance time frame window, they will be cut.