Its a little of everything. The current moves and positive press coming out of Intel and Nvidia, make the mediocrity at AMD more obvious. imho
AMD Clashed With CEO
I saw that, but the AMD BoD obviously knew this long before CES.
What really changed at CES was 1.) Big Windows (and Office) on ARM 2.) Project Denver
It seems more and more to be related to expanding into mobile markets tather than any problems with the 2011 line up.
But can they do it while fighting Intel on the x86 market?
I would also imagine Tegra just about everywhere, hurt a bit. Especially after they sold off their mobile unit so cheaply. It seems like they could have had their own version of Tegra at CES this year (or even last year) had they not sold out to Qualcomm.
The part of this line of thinking (which many have espoused) that doesn't sit right with me is that it fails to account for the reality of the financial situation that existed at the time within AMD.
AMD was in dire need of stemming the cash bleed at the time. Without supreme confidence that tablets and the mobile sector was going to take off, AMD had the harsh reality of knowing that every dollar spent on an engineer working on a mobile chip was one less dollar they had to spend on developing products for their main lines of business (CPU's and GPU's in consumer and server marketspace).
It is easy for us to say with hindsight they chose poorly, but at the time, with the data they had available, their choice to sell and raise cash asap was logical and necessary for the company to remain solvent.
At the time Intel had recently spun-off their mobile division (the non-x86 part)...if Intel didn't want a peice of that pie then what argument would Dirk have to convince the BoD that AMD should stick with it and spend less on Bulldozer?
Your statement is contradicting to me. Optimus is not a game changer at all. If you look at it, AMD has been dominating in Discrete mobile GPU's.. where as Nvidia is losing ground. Nvidia has been maintaining its share in desktop parts though.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20101102PR201.html
The part of this line of thinking (which many have espoused) that doesn't sit right with me is that it fails to account for the reality of the financial situation that existed at the time within AMD.
AMD was in dire need of stemming the cash bleed at the time. Without supreme confidence that tablets and the mobile sector was going to take off, AMD had the harsh reality of knowing that every dollar spent on an engineer working on a mobile chip was one less dollar they had to spend on developing products for their main lines of business (CPU's and GPU's in consumer and server marketspace).
It is easy for us to say with hindsight they chose poorly, but at the time, with the data they had available, their choice to sell and raise cash asap was logical and necessary for the company to remain solvent.
At the time Intel had recently spun-off their mobile division (the non-x86 part)...if Intel didn't want a peice of that pie then what argument would Dirk have to convince the BoD that AMD should stick with it and spend less on Bulldozer?
AMD's mobile GPU tech is inferior to NV's right now.
To say AMD's mobile GPU offerings are better in terms of power usage and battery life is completely ignorant.
If you read a lot of the CES articles, mobile GPUs by NV dominated the event for 2011 models. SB/NV mobiles will be the product to get in 2011.
The problem with this way of working is you're never going to come anything but second.
Divestment is a legitimate business strategy.
If the "problem" with divestment were that "you never come to anything but second" then it would not have the merit and credulity it has amongst business leaders and their investors.
I think a lot of people here have extremely short-term memories and have entirely forgotten just how dire things were inside AMD right before GloFo was spun off and AMD sold everything they could to raise cash quick.
In fact until AMD settled and got $1B from Intel there were plenty of compelling business stats painting a bankruptcy picture for AMD when their 2012 notes came due.
Now that isn't to say that poor leadership decisions aren't to blame for AMD finding themselves in the position of needing to adopt a divestment strategy for survival. This much I totally agree and if Dirk had a critical role in the decisions that led to K10's delays as well as the process tech delays then his actions deserve to be rewarded just as they have been.
Personally my bigger concerns for AMD have more to do with what I see in the tea leaves from Dirk leaving so abruptly. Obviously this wasn't the BoD's decision to have him leave without a transition period, this was Dirk's decision. So what got Dirk so riled?
What could the BoD possibly be planning at AMD that was so unacceptable, so absurd, that Dirk felt he simply could not and would not spend a single day being associated with the transition that the BoD wants to accomplish?
Dirk's no dummy, something not good for AMD in Dirk's opinion is being cooked up by the BoD and what's not good for AMD can't be good for us consumers either...
Well the way I read the articles it sounded more like the BoD wanted to get rid of him than the other way around. And if they wanted a dramatic change in the direction they're taking and had already a successor planned, why wait several more months?Personally my bigger concerns for AMD have more to do with what I see in the tea leaves from Dirk leaving so abruptly. Obviously this wasn't the BoD's decision to have him leave without a transition period, this was Dirk's decision. So what got Dirk so riled?
What could the BoD possibly be planning at AMD that was so unacceptable, so absurd, that Dirk felt he simply could not and would not spend a single day being associated with the transition that the BoD wants to accomplish?
Dirk's no dummy, something not good for AMD in Dirk's opinion is being cooked up by the BoD and what's not good for AMD can't be good for us consumers either...
And if they wanted a dramatic change in the direction they're taking and had already a successor planned, why wait several more months?
What could the BoD possibly be planning at AMD that was so unacceptable, so absurd, that Dirk felt he simply could not and would not spend a single day being associated with the transition that the BoD wants to accomplish?
Because it is highly irregular and simply irresponsible of a BoD to do this to a company of this size that is public.
There is a reason wall street expects these transitions to occur in a pre-defined way.
Deviation from that smooth transition path is nearly always a harbinger of something more sinister afoot, and shareholders suffer for this expectation (as do the employees).
The BoD knows this, there is no way they could all be ignorant of this, so I refuse to accept the notion that this was part of their master plan.
If it is/was then the BoD is setup perfectly for a shareholder lawsuit.
It would have been interesting to hear what the BoD thought about "Project Denver". Are they worried about it? The announcement seems to have caught everyone by surprise.
It would have been interesting to hear what the BoD thought about "Project Denver". Are they worried about it? The announcement seems to have caught everyone by surprise.