AMD Q3 Results

[Paul98]

Hopefully new GPU, Carrizo, and HBM end up being good and cost effective so they can start to turn things around next year.

 

[Alatar]

So from the earnings call it would seem like the cuts are going to hit the graphics and computing solutions parts of the company. Though they're trying to keep engineering talent, and R&D for the future technologies is important.

Also apparently despite the holiday season, Q4 GPU (especially AIB) market for AMD is going to be down. And in Q4 we'll see some marketing stuff from them. But it looks like nothing new at all from AMD at least for the next quarter.

 

[Abwx]

7% of AMD employees get to lose their jobs as a Q4 Christmas bonus this year, whereas Rory gets fired AND handed a $5m check. From Rory's personal perspective he's got to call that a success.

I estimated at 320m the lost revenues due to Intel anti competitive practices, this would had amounted to 100 millions net income out of this amount, it would had been enough for the yearly salaries of 1000 people but i guess that it s easier to put the blame on Rory Read.

 

[Elixer]

Projections are that all consoles (well, not Wii) are going to be good sellers this Xmas.
That means that AMD will get a boost there, but the dedicated GPUs are going to tank.
AMD is paying too much to GloFlo for their services.
The CPU/APU is murky, intel is just killing AMD in the low end, clobbering them in the mid-range, and annihilating them in the high-end segment.

I suppose it is possible with AMD's move to ARM that it will generate some extra cash flow, and that is one segment where intel isn't in yet, but, they got a whole lot of other players in that same segment.

They need a winner in '15, but, nobody knows if they can pull it off.

 

[Phynaz]

Some people would have you believe AMD is never responsible for the outcomes of their actions.

The other side of that coin is saying the company's leadership isn't good enough to control their own destiny.

So which is it? Did Rory Reed do a great job and turn AMD around as some would have you believe? Or was he unable to do the job he was hired to do?

Or did they want a CEO that would just throw up his hands and say "It's not my fault!"?

 

[Elixer]

This has got me thinking, I wonder if Su will now have more leverage to re-negotiate the GloFlo contracts ?
The alternative is to null & void the contracts in bankruptcy...

 

[mrmt]

So from the earnings call it would seem like the cuts are going to hit the graphics and computing solutions parts of the company. Though they're trying to keep engineering talent, and R&D for the future technologies is important.

Why do you think they are keeping the engineering talent? They indeed cut in the engineering departments last time, no wonder a lot of projects of the derpdozer family were shot down. The question for AMD now is, what is going to be delayed or cut because of the extra 7% less resources they are going to have? And I doubt that this is the last cut. When Intel 14nm ramps up to markets AMD is still alive, we're going to have another revenue drop, which will force another round of cuts.

 

[mrmt]

Projections are that all consoles (well, not Wii) are going to be good sellers this Xmas.
That means that AMD will get a boost there, but the dedicated GPUs are going to tank.

No, it doesn't. For the consoles to be sitting in a store on xmas they must have left the fab by now. In fact, part of the forecast sales drop is the downturn in the console cycle.

 

[CHADBOGA]

I estimated at 320m the lost revenues due to Intel anti competitive practices, this would had amounted to 100 millions net income out of this amount, it would had been enough for the yearly salaries of 1000 people but i guess that it s easier to put the blame on Rory Read.

Could you please provide more detail of how you arrived at your 320m estimate of lost revenue, due to Intel's anti-competitive practices.

 

[Sweepr]

Disappointing results, they can't rely on consoles forever.

 

[Abwx]

Could you please provide more detail of how you arrived at your 320m estimate of lost revenue, due to Intel's anti-competitive practices.

About 10 millions out of 40 millions chips at 30$/chip, i m assuming that with a superior product they could had only dented 25% of this number, wich is a negligible number in the total tablets sales when accounting both ARM and X86.

Notice that Intel did deliver 15 millions of such chips last quarter, given that sales increase in Q4 they could well reach 50 millions for the year, worse, the link i posted above prove that chips that are supposedly Android dedicated are actualy used in W8.1 tablets, that s a blatant infringment with the agreement signed with AMD a few years ago but AMD is silent for the reasons i explained earlier.

 

[Idontcare]

Idc, what do you think is keeping AMD alive? from what I have read they shouldn't have lasted this long? is it lucky debt management, decent industry relations? what do you think?

AMD is alive because of revenue. They aren't losing enough money on an annual basis to impact their short-term financials, but that is not to be confused with them being well run or operating anywhere near their potential.

I estimated at 320m the lost revenues due to Intel anti competitive practices, this would had amounted to 100 millions net income out of this amount, it would had been enough for the yearly salaries of 1000 people but i guess that it s easier to put the blame on Rory Read.

If there was any truth to what you purport then Rory surely deserves to be fired because what you are claiming is that he has sat idly by without raising a finger to counter-act Intel's anti-competitive practices.

No blogs about it, no comments about it, no lawyer activity regarding it, no FTC or DOJ filings on the matter...zip, nada, nothing.

So either it (anti-competitive practices) doesn't exist, outside the scope of your personal fantasies and narrative, in which case AMD's financials are reflective of Rory's lack of capabilities (which would justify his being fired), or it (anti-competitive practices) does exist in which case AMD is rightly firing Rory who has done nothing to address the situation in any venue whatsoever.

I like to give AMD credit for not being so stupid as to do absolutely nothing in the event that they were/are dealing with illegal anti-competitive tactics, which leads me to conclude that the reason AMD has done nothing is because there actually is nothing to all this FUD you like to spread that Intel is being anti-competitive in the first place.

No matter how you want to spin it, the bottom line is that despite having 3 years to position AMD, the best Rory could do was to position the company such that they are now in the situation where they need to ax yet another 7% of their work force.

The fact that the BoD elected to include Rory in that 7% says everything that needs to be said.

 

[desprado]

Hopefully new GPU, Carrizo, and HBM end up being good and cost effective so they can start to turn things around next year.

They also require a lot of research and money power to that.

 

[NostaSeronx]

They also require a lot of research and money power to that.

HBM has already been researched. AMD's test designs have gone beyond 256 GByte/s with the HBM specification.

Getting the HBM into the SKU they want is the easy part.

 

[Abwx]

AMD is alive because of revenue. They aren't losing enough money on an annual basis to impact their short-term financials, but that is not to be confused with them being well run or operating anywhere near their potential.

They are not dead but they have difficulty to finance their RD, wich could lead to a slow death.

If there was any truth to what you purport then Rory surely deserves to be fired because what you are claiming is that he has sat idly by without raising a finger to counter-act Intel's anti-competitive practices.

No blogs about it, no comments about it, no lawyer activity regarding it, no FTC or DOJ filings on the matter...zip, nada, nothing.

So either it (anti-competitive practices) doesn't exist, outside the scope of your personal fantasies and narrative, in which case AMD's financials are reflective of Rory's lack of capabilities (which would justify his being fired), or it (anti-competitive practices) does exist in which case AMD is rightly firing Rory who has done nothing to address the situation in any venue whatsoever.

I explained above that there s too much risks given their current financial situation, Rory Read is not stupid and surely as smart as both of us together, otherwise it s you or me that would had been occupying his former chair.

And if no one is complaining then there will be no lawsuit filled.

As for the no blog, well if you need blogs..at least Hardware.fr article pointed that the chips were free in their Intel results article, so it s not like people dont know...

I like to give AMD credit for not being so stupid as to do absolutely nothing in the event that they were/are dealing with illegal anti-competitive tactics, which leads me to conclude that the reason AMD has done nothing is because there actually is nothing to all this FUD you like to spread that Intel is being anti-competitive in the first place.

No matter how you want to spin it, the bottom line is that despite having 3 years to position AMD, the best Rory could do was to position the company such that they are now in the situation where they need to ax yet another 7% of their work force.

The fact that the BoD elected to include Rory in that 7% says everything that needs to be said.

Talking is easy, it s much harder to play the game.

As for Rory Read management capabilities he could do nothing else that what he has done, do you realize that the products that will be released months after he left the place were already under design and planned before he took responsibilities.?

Since you re process engineer, how would you react if asked to skip two nodes and get directly to 7nm.?.
Yet that s what you re actualy had expected from this man.

That said i find you quite apologetic in respect of Intel s contra revenues scheme, going as far as saying that i m spreading FUD, indeed ad hominem is the levy of whom is short of arguments, i agree with all honnest discussions and i dont mind being contradicted but i dont resort to such behaviour even if cornered, but i guess that each one set his own standards.

 

[Phynaz]

AMD is alive because of revenue. They aren't losing enough money on an annual basis to impact their short-term financials, but that is not to be confused with them being well run or operating anywhere near their potential.



If there was any truth to what you purport then Rory surely deserves to be fired because what you are claiming is that he has sat idly by without raising a finger to counter-act Intel's anti-competitive practices.

No blogs about it, no comments about it, no lawyer activity regarding it, no FTC or DOJ filings on the matter...zip, nada, nothing.

So either it (anti-competitive practices) doesn't exist, outside the scope of your personal fantasies and narrative, in which case AMD's financials are reflective of Rory's lack of capabilities (which would justify his being fired), or it (anti-competitive practices) does exist in which case AMD is rightly firing Rory who has done nothing to address the situation in any venue whatsoever.

I like to give AMD credit for not being so stupid as to do absolutely nothing in the event that they were/are dealing with illegal anti-competitive tactics, which leads me to conclude that the reason AMD has done nothing is because there actually is nothing to all this FUD you like to spread that Intel is being anti-competitive in the first place.

No matter how you want to spin it, the bottom line is that despite having 3 years to position AMD, the best Rory could do was to position the company such that they are now in the situation where they need to ax yet another 7% of their work force.

The fact that the BoD elected to include Rory in that 7% says everything that needs to be said.

I have wordsmith envy :awe:

 

[DrMrLordX]

I say kudos to AMD for doing as well as they did. Just making money at all is . . . interesting, to say the least, not that they did it in any way that inspires long-term confidence. The desktop/dGPU losses are disheartening. But there's life in there yet!

 

[positivedoppler]

They're actually doing pretty good. Rory pretty much admitted that Bulldozer was a failure. Kaveri and HSA is a good idea but without the software ecosystem to back it up, they continue to bleed market share. They're going to hurt a bit in their graphic's side too due to Maxwell and that's not a surprise.

The positive though is.

1. They just won the Apple iMac contract.
2. They have the X-box and Playstation to provide constant revenue for the next decade.
3. According to Anandtech, they finally close the deal on two other semi custom designs http://www.anandtech.com/show/8625/amd-q3-fy-2014-quarterly-earnings-analysis

At this point, I wonder if AMD would just be better off exiting their x86 business and just license the 64 bit ext to Intel and just focus on graphics and the embedded side which seems to be doing extremely well. Intel is in a really good position to make this happen too. In exchange for paying AMD a 64 bit license on the condition that they exit the x86 field, they are guarantee a monopoly without having to face any legal hurdles. As consumers though, we be the losers on such a deal.

 

[monstercameron]

They're actually doing pretty good. Rory pretty much admitted that Bulldozer was a failure. Kaveri and HSA is a good idea but without the software ecosystem to back it up, they continue to bleed market share. They're going to hurt a bit in their graphic's side too due to Maxwell and that's not a surprise.

The positive though is.

1. They just won the Apple iMac contract.
2. They have the X-box and Playstation to provide constant revenue for the next decade.
3. According to Anandtech, they finally close the deal on two other semi custom designs http://www.anandtech.com/show/8625/amd-q3-fy-2014-quarterly-earnings-analysis

At this point, I wonder if AMD would just be better off exiting their x86 business and just license the 64 bit ext to Intel and just focus on graphics and the embedded side which seems to be doing extremely well. Intel is in a really good position to make this happen too. In exchange for paying AMD a 64 bit license on the condition that they exit the x86 field, they are guarantee a monopoly without having to face any legal hurdles. As consumers though, we be the losers on such a deal.

It isn't like they are not selling x86 cpus, why would they stop building them?

 

[rgallant]

So from the earnings call it would seem like the cuts are going to hit the graphics and computing solutions parts of the company. Though they're trying to keep engineering talent, and R&D for the future technologies is important.

Also apparently despite the holiday season, Q4 GPU (especially AIB) market for AMD is going to be down. And in Q4 we'll see some marketing stuff from them. But it looks like nothing new at all from AMD at least for the next quarter.

re the gpu side imo amd higher management just does not understand the gpu market.

had they released the R9 290-290x like nv did with the 970-980 great cards ,lots of stock,good price,and after market cards day 1.

-instead they released no after market cards , great price ,no stock.
but the ref. cooler killed it from the reviewers. like they never even cared what the product was or performed and it was their show case gpu product for 2013-14, that could have made them tons of money.

-the 7% layoff's should have taken place then ,to any one connected to that release including the CEO.

 

[ClockHound]

The desktop/dGPU losses are disheartening.

It sure is. I did my bit and spent almost $150 on a new AMD GPU this year. For my usage, video rendering with OpenCL, nvidia would have me spend $1000 for a Titan. And still not quite meet the performance of a lower mid model GCN card.

The rendering speed boost from that little card was greater than the upgrade from an Intel quad to Intel hexcore.

But there's life in there yet!

Sure hope so. Maybe I'll get myself a 285 for Xmas and do my part to increase the 'life' in the AMD GPU party. ;-)

Or we could start another CGN cryptomining craze - Anancoin anyone?

Or we all chip in and liberate ATI. A bunch of forum junkies/gurus/monkeys owning a GPU company. What could go wrong?

 

[Enigmoid]

No matter how you want to spin it, the bottom line is that despite having 3 years to position AMD, the best Rory could do was to position the company such that they are now in the situation where they need to ax yet another 7% of their work force.

The fact that the BoD elected to include Rory in that 7% says everything that needs to be said.

Well said, got a nice chuckle out of this.

 

[Rvenger]

I bet Read's moves will have a positive impact in the next 1-2 years though, especially with bringing back Jim Keller.

 

[positivedoppler]

Judging by how this forum hates and bash AMD so much, this should be a great time for celebration especially for all those Intel fans.

 

[positivedoppler]

Interesting news regarding those two contracts.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2834884/amd-plans-to-cut-staff-by-7.html

"Brighter days may be in store for AMD. The company won two custom-chip contracts that will bring in revenue of $1 billion over three years starting in 2016. Su did not name the customers, but said AMD's is in a good position to win lucrative contracts to make device-specific chips."

If it's anything like the console contract, a billion over 3 years at $15 a pop is about only an extra 12.5 million a quarter in profit. While the margin might be low, it helps to keep that GF line busy.