[AT] AMD Executive Shakeup

[Enigmoid]

And yet they're spending money on it. Strange how that works.

They don't even have a catchphrase.

There is a difference between, "Here is two peanuts see what you can do" and "Here is the needed amount of money to market this product and bring in the most sales."

 

[xLegenday]

They are more sales oriented than a marketing wizz..All their $ going to rebates.

 

[positivedoppler]

Wow. Didn't Byrne just give this upbeat interview?

http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/11/w...the-internet-of-things-chip-market-interview/

Actually, this explains a lot. If the writing's on the wall, then you can interpret that interview as a last bid to save his job while taking as much credit as possible before exiting the door. There's a lot to be read between the line here. He pre announces Carrizo success and drops hints of upcoming design wins. That can be interpreted as a desperate bid to take credit for success when he's no longer with the company.

Ultimately, you get the vibe that Lisa wants to clear house and replace positions with engineers who can communicate better with the customer. In the interview Byrne claims almost the entire 700 lay-offs were from him. Lisa wasn't happen with the business team and probably wanted to clean house and replace them with people with engineering backgrounds.


It was my business. I purposefully took the biggest impact from what happened recently. If you’ve been at any other big companies, a reduction in force means everyone takes a haircut. We didn’t do that. As I mentioned at the beginning, I had these two separate businesses — two different product management teams, two different ISV teams, two different benchmarking teams, two different go-to-market teams. I had two of everything.

It was my business. I purposefully took the biggest impact from what happened recently. If you’ve been at any other big companies, a reduction in force means everyone takes a haircut. We didn’t do that. As I mentioned at the beginning, I had these two separate businesses — two different product management teams, two different ISV teams, two different benchmarking teams, two different go-to-market teams. I had two of everything.I thought about our customers, getting close to our customers and bringing products to market that customers really want. That’s what matters. When they win, we win. It’s critical to listen to the voice of the customer. But you have to be simple to do business with. You have to be fast, agile, nimble. People are held very accountable.
Looking at my business, client and graphics, I let go a third of the VPs involved in the business, a quarter of the directors. I took a whole chunk out of middle management, which is unusual. Normal that appears to be a protected species, but here it wasn’t. I wanted us to be faster. I no longer have two different product teams. I have one. People know where to go. When you’re the underdog, you have to have that underdog mentality. That’s why I did it.


Now comes the desperate bid to save his job. The below sounds like a desprate plea to don't axe me look at all the stuff I will be doing.

I believe that we have not historically played in commercial. We’ve won the industry’s largest single tender in commercial 18 months ago in India. We won Elitebook … with HP last year. Wait until you see the lineup of commercial platforms I have with Carrizo. It allows us to continue to attack that i3, attack that i5 consumer, and really get to penetrate the commercial market space. We’ll attack graphics. That’s going to be my strategy next.


We’re pleased with the designs we have already with the top customers in the marketplace.

I think there might be a little bit of a problem here in which he basically leaked AMD's upcoming graphic's timeline. If Carrizo is coming out at the end of the 1st half, then Pirate cards won't be on the table until the start of the 3rd quarter at the earliest. I wonder if that bit got him in trouble.

 

[Ramses]

The problem is they have virtually no marketing at all. AMD has no brand name presence whatsoever. They have about as much presence as some no-name Chinese brand as far as most of the world is concerned.

I'm not being a jerk in case it does not come across, but what are they not doing? I see AMD stuff everywhere, constant emails from large selling outfits like Newegg and Tiger, AMD ram, AMD SSD's, AMD software, AMD this, AMD that, the Gaming Evolved software is even half decent and I usually hate that stuff (the driver update notifications and game optimizing so far have worked very well for me. Vid driver updates have been steady and I can't remember the last time I had one act up (years). If anything, totally honest, I have for years gotten the impression that AMD was out there actively trying to court gamers and enthusiasts while Intel was playing the smile down from there pedestal role (which isn't undeserved). I hardly see anything in the user/gamer/enthusiast market for Intel in the way of advertising and stuff. Again, honest question and assessment from someone that does not follow the companies themselves very closely, just what I read on tech sites and FS sites.

 

[railven]

I'm not being a jerk in case it does not come across, but what are they not doing? I see AMD stuff everywhere, constant emails from large selling outfits like Newegg and Tiger, AMD ram, AMD SSD's, AMD software, AMD this, AMD that, the Gaming Evolved software is even half decent and I usually hate that stuff (the driver update notifications and game optimizing so far have worked very well for me. Vid driver updates have been steady and I can't remember the last time I had one act up (years). If anything, totally honest, I have for years gotten the impression that AMD was out there actively trying to court gamers and enthusiasts while Intel was playing the smile down from there pedestal role (which isn't undeserved). I hardly see anything in the user/gamer/enthusiast market for Intel in the way of advertising and stuff. Again, honest question and assessment from someone that does not follow the companies themselves very closely, just what I read on tech sites and FS sites.

Not sure about your side of the world, but outside of cyber space where most adverts are considered spam (shoot, even I just delete adverts from Newegg/Microcenter because I get 2-3 a week with usually the same deals.)

Enter my Microcenter, right at the front door the CPU display with giant Intel logos, big shiny blue boxes, and then the AMD boxes (perhaps it's a cost saving issue, but physical package size actually looks skewed in Intel's favor when the display stands are 70% blue).

Swing around to the OEM/Pre-Builts, Intel logos, Intel deals, and in the back AMD. But I have no inkling that at least my Microcenter is Intel bias.

My local Best Buys, have a similar trend. Mostly because of the bigger/popular Apple sections that have their own Intel logos. The opposite "PC-Side" is mostly Nvidia logos. They don't even sell AMD Radeon's pass R7-grade at my local Best Buys but they sure do have plenty at eye level over priced Nvidia branded GTX 760s.

In the SSD/RAM section they don't sell AMD branded anything, and this applies to Microcenter too.
EDIT: Checking their online inventory, My Microcenter has 3 Radeon branded SSD's, but they are listed under the OCZ name:
http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...-Data-Storage-:-Computer-Parts-:-Micro-Center
RAM: And I was wrong about the RAM, they have 4 options with a whopping total of 5 in stock, not of each, 1 of 3 different options and 2 of another option:
http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...mputer-Memory-:-Computer-Parts-:-Micro-Center
That really isn't market presence, at least to a store that in my area sees a huge movement of inventory.

These are the only stores in my store outtings that even sell computer parts (man has this market shrunk).

Perhaps in adverts and product lines AMD has market presence, but in the real world - woof.

Also, my employer has a license through an Intel OEM vendor. So usually talking to them and their limited PC knowledge, when they think of AMD they don't think of SSDs, RAM, or even GPUs. They mostly seem to echo the stigma of econo-line CPUs.

 

[erunion]

Waiting for the ADF to say they weren't fired :awe:

AMD Defense Force?

 

[geoxile]

There is a difference between, "Here is two peanuts see what you can do" and "Here is the needed amount of money to market this product and bring in the most sales."

Those peanuts are a waste of money.

I'm not being a jerk in case it does not come across, but what are they not doing? I see AMD stuff everywhere, constant emails from large selling outfits like Newegg and Tiger, AMD ram, AMD SSD's, AMD software, AMD this, AMD that, the Gaming Evolved software is even half decent and I usually hate that stuff (the driver update notifications and game optimizing so far have worked very well for me. Vid driver updates have been steady and I can't remember the last time I had one act up (years). If anything, totally honest, I have for years gotten the impression that AMD was out there actively trying to court gamers and enthusiasts while Intel was playing the smile down from there pedestal role (which isn't undeserved). I hardly see anything in the user/gamer/enthusiast market for Intel in the way of advertising and stuff. Again, honest question and assessment from someone that does not follow the companies themselves very closely, just what I read on tech sites and FS sites.

For any enthusiast and many (if not most gamers) AMD simply isn't good enough right now. These people care about metrics, even if they're not that significant. Some kind of metric. Maybe it's performance, or frame times, or power efficiency, sometimes value, but not really since while the Never Settle Space bundle was running AMD lost a decent chunk of dGPU marketshare to Nvidia. There's also the matter of "enthusiasts" having rabid biases.

Mainstream cares about value and image. Sometimes they don't even really care about value as long as there's a recognizable name and a pretty price.

Honestly, while these "AMD" branded gaming SSDs and RAM probably make some profit, it's most likely insignificant, but not bad enough to be discontinued.

Edit: As for Intel. Well, around here I haven't seen any products with AMD in stores at your normal retailers like Best Buy. I know of someone who got an AMD laptop at a CostCo. One of those cheap Beema laptops. It came pre-installed with Norton IIRC, that ate up 50% CPU time until I uninstalled it.

 

[Ramses]

That might explain it, other than best buy who doesn't seem to advertise or promote anything but apple and smart watches and tv's, I don't go anywhere retail, or buy prebuilt and such. I did notice there wasn't a decent AMD based laptop recently, but they really don't have anything mobile that's overly high end. I bought an a8-6410 and it was fine other than Toshiba made a crappy housing and such to saddle it with. I bought an i7 for a lot more money but if the a8 had been in the I7's chassis/keyboard/etc I'd have been fine with it for 3/4 the price. I assumed the AMD branded ssd/ram was just midrange stuff at best from someone else but at least they are trying. Do either of them still do TV commercials? I remember Intel had those dancing guys in suites awhile ago, it was embarrassing but I thought it was interesting they were going for mainstream advertising. I haven't watched TV in a lot of years either.

 

[exar333]

I'm not being a jerk in case it does not come across, but what are they not doing? I see AMD stuff everywhere, constant emails from large selling outfits like Newegg and Tiger, AMD ram, AMD SSD's, AMD software, AMD this, AMD that, the Gaming Evolved software is even half decent and I usually hate that stuff (the driver update notifications and game optimizing so far have worked very well for me. Vid driver updates have been steady and I can't remember the last time I had one act up (years). If anything, totally honest, I have for years gotten the impression that AMD was out there actively trying to court gamers and enthusiasts while Intel was playing the smile down from there pedestal role (which isn't undeserved). I hardly see anything in the user/gamer/enthusiast market for Intel in the way of advertising and stuff. Again, honest question and assessment from someone that does not follow the companies themselves very closely, just what I read on tech sites and FS sites.

Throwing your name on products like SSDs and RAM that you don't actually make is just silly and reeks of desperation. Thankfully PC users can see through such silly 'marketing'.

This is laughable.

What's next? Maybe Intel should put their name on Mice and Keyboards? LOL

 

[shady28]

I'm not being a jerk in case it does not come across, but what are they not doing? I see AMD stuff everywhere, constant emails from large selling outfits like Newegg and Tiger, AMD ram, AMD SSD's, AMD software, AMD this, AMD that, the Gaming Evolved software is even half decent and I usually hate that stuff (the driver update notifications and game optimizing so far have worked very well for me. Vid driver updates have been steady and I can't remember the last time I had one act up (years). If anything, totally honest, I have for years gotten the impression that AMD was out there actively trying to court gamers and enthusiasts while Intel was playing the smile down from there pedestal role (which isn't undeserved). I hardly see anything in the user/gamer/enthusiast market for Intel in the way of advertising and stuff. Again, honest question and assessment from someone that does not follow the companies themselves very closely, just what I read on tech sites and FS sites.

FWIW I agree. I saw this forever it seemed like. AMD was definitely courting enthusiasts and gamers, and they were doing it via online retail and ads on sites like AT, Tom's hardware, Ars, etc.

Now, recently that's declined - a lot I think.

This Lisa Su has some serious cred on the technical side though.

This is old, but :

http://www2.technologyreview.com/tr35/profile.aspx?TRID=397

"After joining IBM in 1995,Su, who has a PhD in electrical engineering, played a critical role in integrating copper connections into semiconductor chips, solving the problem of preventing copper impurities from contaminating the devices during production. The technology, unveiled in 1998,led to chips that were 10 to 20 percent faster than those with conventional aluminum connections. Su showed she had management acumen and was allowed to start Emerging Products. “Lisa became an IBM executive in five years,” says colleague Scottie Ginn, “quicker than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

 

[railven]

That might explain it, other than best buy who doesn't seem to advertise or promote anything but apple and smart watches and tv's, I don't go anywhere retail, or buy prebuilt and such. I did notice there wasn't a decent AMD based laptop recently, but they really don't have anything mobile that's overly high end. I bought an a8-6410 and it was fine other than Toshiba made a crappy housing and such to saddle it with. I bought an i7 for a lot more money but if the a8 had been in the I7's chassis/keyboard/etc I'd have been fine with it for 3/4 the price. I assumed the AMD branded ssd/ram was just midrange stuff at best from someone else but at least they are trying. Do either of them still do TV commercials? I remember Intel had those dancing guys in suites awhile ago, it was embarrassing but I thought it was interesting they were going for mainstream advertising. I haven't watched TV in a lot of years either.

I dunno if the options will load for you, but:
http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...-Data-Storage-:-Computer-Parts-:-Micro-Center

Price is definitely an issue. Here is a Newegg link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-115-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-118-_-Product

In both examples, the OCZ manufactured SSD is cheaper by ~$20-30 than the same drive branded for AMD. I don't think AMD really has the brand power to charge up to 40% more for essentially the same product.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8420/amd-radeon-r7-ssd-240gb-review/8
Not a positive conclusion.

 

[exar333]

FWIW I agree. I saw this forever it seemed like. AMD was definitely courting enthusiasts and gamers, and they were doing it via online retail and ads on sites like AT, Tom's hardware, Ars, etc.

Now, recently that's declined - a lot I think.

This Lisa Su has some serious cred on the technical side though.

This is old, but :

http://www2.technologyreview.com/tr35/profile.aspx?TRID=397

"After joining IBM in 1995,Su, who has a PhD in electrical engineering, played a critical role in integrating copper connections into semiconductor chips, solving the problem of preventing copper impurities from contaminating the devices during production. The technology, unveiled in 1998,led to chips that were 10 to 20 percent faster than those with conventional aluminum connections. Su showed she had management acumen and was allowed to start Emerging Products. “Lisa became an IBM executive in five years,” says colleague Scottie Ginn, “quicker than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

True, but it takes a REALLY special marketing group to keep you competitive in the eyes of the consumer after almost a decade of inferior products (CPUs). GPUs have been more competitive, obviously, but AMD has all but forgotten the discrete mobile sector which is a huge growth area for DGPUs.

 

[beginner99]

Throwing your name on products like SSDs and RAM that you don't actually make is just silly and reeks of desperation.

Yeah it's a waste of money. Enthusiast won't buy it, I mean who buys an OCZ SSD at higher than OCZ prices? It's a waste of money and time on their side. They should focus and not diversify.

 

[Ancalagon44]

AMD had a marketing executive? Wait, AMD has a marketing department? Really?

The funny thing is that they market their GPUs a lot better than they market their CPUs, and their GPUs also happen to be better products than their CPUs. I would appreciate it if the marketing department spent a bit more time trying to get Beema and Mullins into devices I can actually buy.

 

[Ramses]

Thankfully PC users can see through such silly 'marketing'.

This is laughable.

What's next? Maybe Intel should put their name on Mice and Keyboards? LOL

Brand labeled keyoards and mice worked out ok for IBM and Microsoft for a lot of years lol...

But yeah, in the very least it's corny. It'd be different if they had some manufacturer contracted to make something different or better. It's something some marketing people dreamed up no doubt.

But with all the neon lights and POS chinese glowing fans and melting fan controllers and endless on list of computer BS marketed to people that know just enough to be dangerous, I'd be afraid to say a majority of people see through it. The vast majority of self built computers I have ever seen, or small pc shop built, on craigslist, etc, etc, have been full of crap. I got zero faith on that score. I didn't even bother looking into them other than to notice their existence, figured if they were awesome I'd see a forum post about it.

But it is trying I guess.
Intel put a skull on an SSD awhile back.
That was edgy and cool right?

 

[Erenhardt]

If the company is failing, people responsible should take a hit.
AMD needs changes, no point in waiting. It won't fix itself.

Throwing your name on products like SSDs and RAM that you don't actually make is just silly and reeks of desperation. Thankfully PC users can see through such silly 'marketing'.

This is laughable.

What's next? Maybe Intel should put their name on Mice and Keyboards? LOL

That would be terrible!

more here

 

[hungtran]

http://www.argylejournal.com/chief-...on-employees-to-drive-a-brand-transformation/

Hope she wasn't compensated 7 figures with stock units for this kind of work.

The best form of marketing is always word of mouth.

 

[erunion]

Criticism of AMDs marketing tend towards the contradictory especially from anyone who blames marketing for AMDs lack of success.

AMDs problem is its products. No amount of good marketing can save a bad product, and the best products need little marketing.

Blaming AMDs marketing tends to come from those people who insist AMDs products strength is being a "great value". They don't realize that being a great value is a weakness. Strong products demand high margins. Advertising a brand as a "great value" is an oxymoron. Its the high margin brands that can afford large ad campaigns. The brands competing on price undercut their competitors by saving money; for example, on advertising.

The universal complaint against AMD is that they built false hype(and its a good complaint). But what's the alternative? If a product lacks a killer feature, any type of hype is going to end up falling flat. The problem again is the mediocre product.

Personally, I blame AMDs board of directors. They picked each CEO, approved their plans, yet every one has been in hindsight a "failure". So the board dumps them and picks a new scapegoat.
RR was hired to do a certain job, to "turn around" AMD in a specific way(cost cutting, iirc). But the Board decided it wasn't really working out, and moved on to a new phase in AMDs history.

 

[hungtran]

Hawaii was a huge marketing failure after the reference cooler disaster. Those chips should've gained massive market share pre-Maxwell (they had projected 20pt increase from 40/60 to 60/40 in dGPU against NVDA) but didn't due to the utter lack of ability to communicate that non-reference R9 290/290x cards were not all loud, hot and throttling as the reference cards were. More than a year later, consumers still have the image of R9 290 cards throttling and running hot. They should have delivered a clear message by sending free non-reference cards to all the review sites out there and give reviewers gift baskets of non-reference cards. Or an exchange program of fixed coolers for reference coolers.

If a company consistently over-promises and under-delivers, no one will believe them when they start telling the truth. The whole culture of AMD PR is secrecy and evasiveness, just like the wording of today's change. They need to be more honest with themselves in the public because they're not fooling anyone with the stump speech about being in every console, getting design wins, and less dependence on PC.

 

[Ramses]

If the company is failing, people responsible should take a hit.
AMD needs changes, no point in waiting. It won't fix itself.



That would be terrible!

more here

The one in the link looks like a ripoff of one I think I saw Microsoft made,
Arc or something? If you pushed it it'd go flat.

 

[WittyRemark]

Advertising: The paid, public, non-
personal announcement of a
persuasive message by an identified
sponsor; the non-personal
presentation or promotion by a firm
of its products to its existing and
potential customers.
Marketing: The systematic planning,
implementation and control of a mix
of business activities intended to
bring together buyers and sellers for
the mutually advantageous exchange
or transfer of products.

 

[Ramses]

By that definition, which I don't disagree with, ideally we'd hear a lot of advertising and very little about marketing. Along the lines of "if you do it right nobody knows you did anything at all". I do a little of both for the business I work for, the former is obvious to the public, the latter I generally don't want to be common knowledge.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Criticism of AMDs marketing tend towards the contradictory especially from anyone who blames marketing for AMDs lack of success.

AMDs problem is its products. No amount of good marketing can save a bad product, and the best products need little marketing.

The only bad products that AMD makes are its Bulldozer line of CPUs and APUs. Their Cat cores (Jaguar and Puma) are very good, BUT, because of the poor marketing, they are much more difficult to buy. Intel has had far more design wins with Baytrail than AMD has had with Beema and Mullins, and why?

 

[erunion]

The only bad products that AMD makes are its Bulldozer line of CPUs and APUs. Their Cat cores (Jaguar and Puma) are very good, BUT, because of the poor marketing, they are much more difficult to buy. Intel has had far more design wins with Baytrail than AMD has had with Beema and Mullins, and why?

Because customer demand is higher.

I was actually in Best Buy around the holidays and was truely surprised by how many Catcore PCs there were, granted they tended towards ultra-bargain junk. If not 50% of desktops, then it was pretty close.

Edit: I should add I predict these computers would have provided anything but a "very good" experience.

 

[RussianSensation]

The problem is they have virtually no marketing at all. AMD has no brand name presence whatsoever. They have about as much presence as some no-name Chinese brand as far as most of the world is concerned.

Even on their website when one tries to check features of GCN, they have outdated info comparing HD7970 vs. 6970. The current website looks unprofessional, difficult to find good info, and presentation is awful especially compared to their primary competitor NV. Marketing also means providing reviewers with product samples making sure they have sufficient SKUs to test. In AMD's case this has generally involved sending reference hot and loud, performance-throttling products, while NV sends after-market factory pre-overclocked cards almost like clock work with proper reviwers guides that are targeted at making their cards look great based on their testing.
All of these little details matter in portraying the final brand image as launch reviews matter a great deal.

I think Lisa's focus should be to replace expensive executives that haven't done a great job with technically strong engineering leaders. This is one of those times where AMD needs to produce better products and non-technical execs can't do that. Hopefully something good will come out of it.