AMD To Shed 10% of Its Workforce 276
stress_life writes "Recent rumors about AMD firing 5% of its workforce proved to be understated. AMD just announced that the company is going to deliver pink slips to 1600-1700 workers, or around 10% of its employees. AMD needs revenue of $2 billion per quarter, but Q1'08 is expected to come in around $1.5 billion. These firings have to be complete by Q3'08, the quarter by which Hector Ruiz promised to be profitable." We most recently discussed AMD's struggles in February.
And if... (Score:5, Interesting)
We saw something like this with Blu-Ray when HDDVD was announced to be dead.
And Via.. Well, they're VIA. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Re:And if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And if... (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides the terrible publicity for the launch of a new generation of CPUs, the covered-up TLB bug which prevents reliable virtualization (even 1 crash a week is NOT acceptable)... they almost completely dropped their support for the linux community with this CPU & chipset release. Their 780G chipset + SB700 southbridge is absolutely terrible in linux (even with 2.6.25-rc8)--20MB/s on a Raptor SATA with AHCI mode enabled (usually gets 75MB/s). AND, almost all the motherboards that supposedly support the 125W Phenoms will blow their voltage regulators within minutes of booting!
Or maybe I'm just bitter... I just got burned by this stupid fucking Phenom & 780G+SB700 release. Q6600, here I come--at Fry's its even cheaper then the mid-range Phenom now!
Re: And if... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there is a risk over the next five years of Intel again gaining monopoly or near-monopoly status in the x86 world (or whatever precisely it has morphed into now).
Transportation Stocks Suggest Recovery (Score:5, Interesting)
People that I have talked to in the transportation business seem to think the recession already took place from around mid last year into this quarter, but now they think the economy is recovering. They are basing this on a rather dramatic falloff in freight shipments and then a recovery.
This followed a similar pattern in the early 1990s.. that is, by the time Clinton said "It's the economy stupid", the recession was already technically over. It's just now the pundits and papers need something to scare people with to sell more punditry and their papers.
Buggy products (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently we have to wait even longer before this mess will be cleared up. Is it any surprise that revenue is down?
Re:And if... (Score:5, Interesting)
We saw something like this with Blu-Ray when HDDVD was announced to be dead.
On the other hand, I doubt that Intel would eliminate competition completely because there is certainly room for more than just one company. I'm not saying AMD is going to survive, but sometimes the best thing for a business is to terminate and reinstate itself.
Re:And if... (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD, as a company, may die. I seriously doubt their processors and GPUs will anytime soon. My guess would be either IBM or a Japanese semiconductor fab will resurrect their product line out of the smoldering crater.
A not-so-outlandish idea, however, is Samsung. To me, Korean ownership, development, and production makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Re:Lay off 10%? (Score:5, Interesting)
That said - I agree with your feeling that executives never seem to take responsibility for screw-ups. Instead, they take million dollar golden parachutes into semi-retirement. I'd love to see an exec who says: "Wow, we stunk this year. I'm cutting my salary in half to help the company stay profitable." Or a CEO who says "Wow, we stunk these past two years. I'm obviously the wrong person to run this company, and am forfeiting all salary, bonuses and payments that were supposed to come my way." I guess that technically, the Board of Directors is supposed to do this, but that's a whole different issue.
Re:Transportation Stocks Suggest Recovery (Score:5, Interesting)
Only problem, none of the things that caused the credit crunch have been fixed:
* No regulations for transparency, so you can know the real risk of the "financial product" you're buying.
* The responsibility breakdown between loan origination and loan execution remains. (How the HECK can you get into a position to get a commission for writing a loan, with no responsibility to know that the borrower can really pay? What a job!)
* No regulations on allowable margin, or even for margin transparency.
- I'm sure there are more.
Nothing has been fixed, we merely appear to have dodged THIS bullet, but the madmen are still out there with their machine guns.
Re: And if... (Score:3, Interesting)
AMD NOT going under (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: And if... (Score:5, Interesting)
Measured by performance, yes. But then, I haven't based CPU purchases on performance since I was a teenager and computers had single-digit MHz's. Over time you end up with far more computing power if you buy best price/performance more often and every time, instead of spending the premium for higher end on more rarely occuring purchases.
I think there is a risk over the next five years of Intel again gaining monopoly or near-monopoly status
I doubt it. It's not a new situation, and as long as AMD can keep delivering better price/performance they will retain significant marketshare. If they fail at that tho, or if Intel lowers prices... but then again, Intel is too fond of charging what the market will bear, so that would be unlikely.
Re:Lay off 10%? (Score:4, Interesting)
If they strategically cut groups that are not performing (including the managers)... that's cutting the fat.
10% layoff is healthy (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD has still a little head start... (Score:5, Interesting)
- x86-compatible 64bits architecture, integrated memory controller, low power and thermal
exactly at a time when intel was stuck in dead ends :
- on one hand Itanium proved not to be the optimal way to bring 64bit to desktops and was stuck in the scientific cluster market
- on the other hand the Pentium 4, which was the CPU equivalent of a hummer, and was unable to go above 3GHz although the NetBurst architecture was planned to reach 10GHz
Intel had to lose time, going back to an older generation (PentiumIII-based PentiumM) and developing a decent workstation & desktop processor out of it (Core 2 was the first decent answer to Athlon 64).
Now we are back to the statu quo. With AMD having some technologically interesting products (true quad-cores) and interesting perf/price ratio in the mid-range products, but other wise no massive advantage.
And Intel throwing tons of resources and replaying the "Gigahertz race", except this time with the number of cores bolted to the same package, offering expensive but fast processors.
*BUT*
AMD could still get some advantage in the near future.
First, the gain obtained by multiplying the number of cores will soon top (My crystal balls predict somewhere around 6-8 cores). Intel is going to hit a wall soon, just like they got stuck with their Gigahertz race.
Second, integrated design with the memory controller on the CPU and a standard bus between the CPU and the rest of the PC seems to make a lot of sense. At least that's what Intel's engineer are thinking.
Here again AMD has some advantages :
They already have such an architecture since Athlon 64, the hypertransport bus has been adopted already by several other constructor for various (FPGA and other accelerators, or simply communication between multiple chipsets on motherboard with several northbridges), their socket has stabilised (thank to the compatible family AM2 => AM2+ => AM3).
Whereas Intel will probably once again lose some time developing and perfect their Quick-Path based processors, probably changing their connector a couple of time along the way (can't technically reuse LGA775, will have to develop a new one and as usually will probably change it a couple of time before stabilising), will have to convince other constructor to adopt it (they will, of course as they are "the standard x86 cpu that every PC maker use". But it'll take some additional time), etc...
Once again we will see a transition at Intel, during which AMD has a small advantage (smaller than with the Athlon 64, but still present).
If they leverage their advantage well (partnerships around the HyperTransport, perhaps), they can achieve some success.
Of course that advantage won't stay indefinitely, and after that Intel will probably be back again with big beasts. Probably by then the technology will better take advantage of bigger multicores. And they'll also have a good advantage in the GPU / GPGPU markets by then.
Re:1929 (Score:1, Interesting)
Let me guess, you're a democrat. No, you're an idiot. The great depression was not caused by consumer debt spending (although deflation didn't help consumer debtors) nor extreme wealth inequality (although it did cause some extreme poverty).
It was caused by lack of liquidity in the economy. The U.S. dollar was tied to gold and we ran out of gold to support the level of cash needed to keep the economy running smoothly. In short, people who saved enough money under their mattresses before the great depression did okay, the people who spent or invested their money lost their investments, and the people who wanted to borrow to start businesses couldn't get the funding despite the fact that there was massive amounts of inexpensive human capital going to waste.
Re: And if... (Score:4, Interesting)
AMD hasn't announced where it's cutting from, but if they're smart, they're going to cut fat, not lop off their head.
Re: And if... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not an opportunity that's going to come twice. Plus, this time, it's AMD that's fumbled, releasing a key product with a fatal bug. Intel is huge, and can afford to make a mistake now and then. AMD can't.
Re:Transportation Stocks Suggest Recovery (Score:5, Interesting)
No, you're wrong (especially if you're talking about America). Most people think this is how it works, but it isn't.
When you take ou a loan, "new money" is created as debt from that loan. Sounds ridiculous right? It is, but it's the truth.
I suggest that you or anyone else who is interested in this and in how the Fed operates watch these very short animated videos that will show you EXACTLY how banking in America works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8 [youtube.com]
They are very interesting, there are 5 parts - watch one, you'll want to watch them all and they are very informative.
Re: And if... (Score:3, Interesting)
AMD knows it's a bad idea. They've said as much over the past couple years as their profits turned into losses, and the analysts naturally started wondering if layoffs were coming. AMD said that they did not want to reduce costs via layoffs, for essentially the reasons you gave, in particular that reducing your engineering staff makes it harder to make the product that helps you get out of the hole.
But to quote myself as they've repeated this quarter after quarter, "that can't go on forever". The email from Dirk Myer posted to the Inquirer makes it sound like this quarter is going to be particularly bad, and investors are only going to be patient for so long before they demand substantial action. Layoffs aren't the only thing they could do, at least in theory, but payroll presents some major low-hanging fruit for cost savings.
It sucks, it's sub-optimal, but it probably won't break the company or anything. AMD has been in worse straights, and had to have larger layoffs, and they're still here. Their unprecedented recent success just makes this seem like a larger fall. They just need to get their new products out (the delays to Barcelona being a major factor in this situation) and recover from the stumble.
Re:AMD isn't comatose (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:AMD isn't comatose (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Laptops means AMD has to compete on TDP, which has rarely been their strong point*
3. Smaller process and more complex design equals better economics of scale, favor Intel
4. A lot of the "non-mainstream" people are now running Macs = Intel
5. Intel makes killer cheap CPUs by virtue of the small die size for killer margins
* compared to the Pentium 3/Pentium M/Core chips. Netburst was an abomination.
CPUs are one business where if you can't put money into the next generation, you're dead. If AMD don't have the money for new R&D or new fabs, they won't have a cheap processor that does the job. Intel has the power to shipwreck AMD right now, they could ship Atom processors (a 25mm^2 part) for half the listed price, put an Intel chip in every "lowest possible price PC" and still turn a healthy profit (comparing to the die sizes of the other chips, not R&D). Performance is more than adequate and combined with a HD-decoding chip it'll do anything but games. I couldn't find a quote for the die size on AMDs smallest chip but the DC chip is 126mm^2 so >63mm^2 at least. That directly translates to fewer processors per die, lower yield and higher power use.
The only question for Intel is whether they want AMD dead or just crippled so they don't have to deal with heavier monopoly regulation. Remember, even at the height AMD never threatened Intel financially, they always shipped the most CPUs and usually on a process generation better than AMD and so they made plenty money to pour down in R&D even when they fumbled away the performance crown. This time it looks like they've sucessfully boxed in AMD both on the low-power and high-performance end and AMD just don't have the resources to diversify. At least it's somewhat better in graphics where nVidia has really disappointed me with the follow-up since the 8800 release, or they'd have a double crisis on their hands. Heh, if they can make good open-source drivers I'll end up being a complete flip-flop compared to the AMD/nVidia fan I used to be (except the last PC, it's Intel/nVidia...) and become an Intel/ATI fan. Now that I'd have put good money against not so long ago...
Re:AMD has still a little head start... (Score:1, Interesting)
The expansion of the number of cores is a natural reaction to the technical design constraints which ended the GHz race. If you can't easily crank the clock up any more, it's time to expand in a different direction.
First, the gain obtained by multiplying the number of cores will soon top (My crystal balls predict somewhere around 6-8 cores). Intel is going to hit a wall soon, just like they got stuck with their Gigahertz race.
Re:1929 (Score:1, Interesting)
At the root of it all, when all the eggs are in one basket -- meaning that when the entire economy can be influenced, even controlled, by a one single central agency -- how could this not hold more inherent risk than a system where economic power is decentralized and distributed among many competing groups? That's just plain common sense.
Re:Other Layoffs: Dell, Google, Chrysler, Motorola (Score:3, Interesting)
I can think of tons of "stuff" our company could be doing that it's not doing enough of, but we don't have the money for it.
Re:Apple and AMD (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: And if... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, I know that they should really be cutting the executive salaries and board member remuneration due to their obvious failure to perform and, as a bonus it often saves more money that cutting the work force by that amount all without affecting productivity.
In reality, what executive team is going to put that idea forward and what group of board members will vote for it, certainly not your typical 20th century sociopath corporate executive type, they are simple out to screw everyone they can, for as much as they can and, for as long as they can, starting with the shareholders ;).
working (Score:1, Interesting)
Not entirely accurate (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:AMD isn't comatose (Score:3, Interesting)
Point the finger - Hector Ruiz (Score:1, Interesting)
In fact, Hector Ruiz did so much to annoy Intel that when the 600lb gorilla finally decided to smack around the annoying little monkey, AMD was caught completely off guard and unprepared. Imagine what it feels like to be sitting and enjoying your lunch, in the middle of the fast lane on the highway when that Mack truck just comes flying at you out of nowhere.
Hector Ruiz then started crying that old song "Intel is evil *wah* they copied our best stuff *wah wah* we invented x86-64 and they just stole it *wah wah* it's not fair *wahhhh*". I mean, this is not what I call leadership.
Yes, Intel copied AMD's best stuff. Did he really think they would not adopt technologies like that. I mean seriously, if Intel didn't copy good stuff that works... and improve on it, Intel should be sued by their shareholders. Oh, and by the way, I'm not sure if Hector Ruiz knows this, but AMD is "Intel Compatible". He should consider himself lucky when Intel adopts a little technology of their since it gives them ground to renegotiate the terms of the x86 instruction set licenses AMD pays on every chip made.
Yes Intel implemented x86-64. No matter how many times Intel tries to make a new dominant processor based on anything but x86, they bomb. Think back to the i860, the original platform Windows NT was developed on. Intel made a great RISC processor. In fact, for a RISC chip, it was equal to MIPS, Sparc and Power in every respect. Problem is, Intel can't sell RISC and Intel has always won because of backwards compatibility. I wonder if Ruiz actually thinks this was bad for his company. After all, if Intel didn't back the x86-64 instruction set, Microsoft would do the bare minimum necessary to support the instruction set (hence the REALLY long beta periods before Intel came on board). The x86-64 would have just been a wasted investment for AMD if Intel didn't support it. Sure there's Linux and the server world, but there are A LOT more personal machines out there than servers. Microsoft goes where the volume is.
If I were the Chairman of the Board of AMD, I would seriously look at bringing in a more diplomatic CEO to AMD, tell him to find a way to compete with Intel and get to it. Intel spent years "losing the CPU battle" pumping out crappy Pentium 4 era chips, but all along, they were hiding away in back rooms and quietly developing the EXTREMELY expandable architecture of Core 2, the first almost truly modular high performance CPU architecture ever. AMD lost a lot of ground and might never be able to make it up again. Of course, we've said this for many years before AMD's glory days.
It's time for AMD to get an architecture team together to really think about how to speed things up. A good idea might be to knock on IBM's door again and see what new technologies they can offer.