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Frant
King's Bounty
Posts: 24655
Location: Your Mom
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 Posted: Tue, 11th Jan 2011 09:30 Post subject: AMD CEO Dirk Meyer suddenly resigns |
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This is slightly worrying for AMD:
Dirk Meyer, CEO and president of AMD, has resigned effectively immediately. AMD's Board of Directors has announced that Senior Vice President and CFO Thomas Seifert will replace him as interim CEO.
The announcement comes as a complete surprise: there were no rumblings of major changes in upper management on the rumor mill, and no knowledge of personal or medical issues that would cause Meyer to suddenly resign. Neither AMD nor Meyer have given a reason for the sudden departure. The resignation comes on the heels of the successful launch of AMD's first Fusion processors for netbooks and ultraportable laptops. AMD's stock has started to fall in after-hours trading, following the announcement.
What does he know that we don't? That the bulldozer is so outperformed by Sandy Bridge that AMD is deep in the gutter while bulldozer is too expensive to make to sell cheaply? What will this mean for the successful graphics division (ATI)? I guess we'll know more in coming months.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
"The sky was the color of a TV tuned to a dead station" - Neuromancer
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tonizito
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Location: Portugal, the shithole of Europe.
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| Posted: Tue, 11th Jan 2011 10:37 Post subject: |
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 ...?
Oh and there were some rumors... they just in the same day, in a few hours before the announcement.
Health issue, perhaps?
| boundle (thoughts on cracking AITD) wrote: | | i guess thouth if without a legit key the installation was rolling back we are all fucking then |
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| Posted: Tue, 11th Jan 2011 16:41 Post subject: |
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Apple buys AMD next tuesday 
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Slizza
Posts: 2345
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Frant
King's Bounty
Posts: 24655
Location: Your Mom
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| Posted: Tue, 11th Jan 2011 21:03 Post subject: |
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WOT:
| Quote: | Today’s resignation of AMD’s former CEO Dirk Meyer seemed like reason to pay attention. It wasn’t a scandal or anything vile that led up to the resignation, just a good old fashioned differing of opinion.
To quote AMD’s press release:
”However, the Board believes we have the opportunity to create increased shareholder value over time. This will require the company to have significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns. We believe a change in leadership at this time will accelerate the company’s ability to accomplish these objectives.”
The implication being that Dirk’s plan for AMD wouldn’t result in significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns. The question is what was Dirk’s plan and what direction does AMD’s Board of Directors believe it should be headed in instead?
Dirk Meyer has been nothing but good for AMD since he took control in 2008. As AMD points out Dirk successfully spun off Global Foundries (the industry as a whole may owe him thanks for that as it seems to be gearing up to be a major player in the future of chip manufacturing). In doing so Dirk also floated a sinking ship—AMD managed a return to profitability under his watch. We’re also on the cusp of AMD’s most active year ever. Brazos just launched and we’ll get both Llano and Bulldozer before the year is out. When was the last time AMD launched three different architectures in a 12 month period? Never, that’s when.
So what wasn’t Dirk prepared to do? AMD still doesn’t have a public ultra mobile (read: smartphone) strategy, but would that be enough to resign over? I don’t have any reason to believe that Bobcat wouldn’t eventually be folded into a smartphone SoC. AMD typically lets Intel open up a new market and then follows it in as an alternative. I suspect it’s a safer bet to let Intel duke it out with ARM for control of the smartphone market before deciding to enter. Based on the outcome there, AMD could choose to enter under either the x86 or ARM banners.
I was talking to Ryan Smith earlier tonight when the news broke and he mentioned something that caught my interest:
“Mark my words, at some point they're going to try to sell the company to ATIC. Let ATIC deal with fighting Intel, and the board/investors can pocket a nice profit. Certainly if you were trying to sell, you'd sack Dirk. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would let them do it.”
This is just one of the many reasons I love working with Ryan—he always looks at things at an angle I hadn’t previously considered. ATIC, the company funding Global Foundries, would be a good suitor for AMD. It has the resources to fund a fight with Intel as we’ve already seen from Global Foundries...oh, and it also happens to own a number of microprocessor fabs that conveniently are very well suited to manufacturing AMD microprocessors.
Obviously everything here is pure speculation. While Dirk saved AMD from extinction, the press release seems to indicate he wouldn’t be the right guy to take AMD to the point of making tons of money. With Intel executing as well as it has been, I’m not sure if a change in CEO will be enough to fix that. AMD needs an influx of revenue to fund the sort of projects it needs in order to gain significant market share.
To be honest, I don’t know Dirk personally and I don’t know why he’d choose to part ways with AMD. Changes like this are usually the result of something significant however. We’ll probably find out the answer in the next 24 months. |
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4123/what-a-day-amds-ceo-dirk-meyer-resigns
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
"The sky was the color of a TV tuned to a dead station" - Neuromancer
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tonizito
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| Posted: Tue, 11th Jan 2011 21:11 Post subject: |
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So, as far as GPU's go, Ati -> AMD -> ATIC? 
| boundle (thoughts on cracking AITD) wrote: | | i guess thouth if without a legit key the installation was rolling back we are all fucking then |
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tonizito
VIP Member
Posts: 51439
Location: Portugal, the shithole of Europe.
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| Posted: Wed, 12th Jan 2011 23:32 Post subject: |
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20028285-92.html
| Quote: | | AMD's former CEO Dirk Meyer reportedly lost his job over his failure to carve out a niche for the chipmaker in the growing mobile market. |
| boundle (thoughts on cracking AITD) wrote: | | i guess thouth if without a legit key the installation was rolling back we are all fucking then |
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| Posted: Wed, 12th Jan 2011 23:42 Post subject: |
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What? Did some shareholder expect AMD to rival ARM?
The only "fail" from AMDs side I see is to rival Intel in the enthusiast-market, but they still outperformed Intel in the low-budget segment.
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Werelds
Special Little Man
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| Posted: Thu, 13th Jan 2011 09:40 Post subject: |
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God this is being pulled so much out of proportion. Fact is, noone knows why he's gone. There's also rumours it's because of health issues and whatnot, and it's all speculation.
He also wasn't "fired" or "forced" out if you read the statement and articles properly 
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