Opinion: 3 Ideas For AMD's Project WIN
AMD will be announcing its "Project WIN" this Wednesday as a follow-up to a massive layoff move that was announced a few days ago.
This announcement will unveil the board’s and Rory Read’s new business strategy for AMD and reveal how the company will be competing in a quickly reshaping processor market. The content of that announcement will have to be at least as shocking as the clean sweep through its executive ranks that we have been witnessing for almost a year.
No company ever announces layoffs. They are referred to euphemistically as restructuring or operational streamlining and are used to justify an obligation to help an organization remain competitive. Executive changes often require layoffs and replacements. It’s what we expect, and there is no surprise when we receive news of pink slips. We almost feel guilty about drawing a paycheck when a teary-eyed letter from the CEO explains just how much a burden we have become for the bottom line of an organization.
However, as painful as the layoffs at AMD are, I somewhat feel that the description of "restructuring" may be very appropriate. Several key personalities must leave: Carrell Killebrew, who is credited with the creation of Eyefinity; several PR reps; vice president of marketing, Margaret Franco; corporate marketing fellow, John Volkmann; and most notably, corporate vice president of strategy and fellow, Patrick Moorhead. Moorhead’s time at AMD goes back to Jerry Sanders. Moorhead was the last standing figure that represented the old AMD. One would have to be blind not to see that AMD will be changing dramatically.
In his letter to AMD employees, Read justified the layoffs with a need to “rebalance” AMD’s "skillsets.” The terminations will result in operational savings of $118 million in 2012 and frees up money to fund "key growth areas." In the letter, Read wrote that “a lower cost base allows [AMD] to be more competitive today and to invest back into the business to fuel [its] "attack" strategies in … low power, emerging markets and the cloud.” Details are promised to be provided in a “Worldcast” this Wednesday. These details must include three pillars that will have to carry AMD in the near future.
A Clear Message
I have been very critical of Read’s performance during his first 60 days at AMD and have been told that I need to cut him some slack. However, we know that CEOs who are capable of leading a Silicon Valley CPU company are rare because they require a very specific skill set. Therefore, the chances are slim by default that AMD’s board of directors chose Read as the right person. The confidence that was molded into Read’s scripted and repetitive phrases during the third quarter earnings call made me wonder if Read’s performance has been worth his $1 million sign-on bonus combined with his $1 million annual salary plus bonuses.
There have been questions why previous CEO, Dirk Meyer, had to leave. We haven’t been given specific answers yet. At this time, AMD’s future direction is blurry. What we know is that AMD’s board of directors replaced a high-level engineer at the top with a businessman who is much more focused on operational efficiency than technology leadership. This puts AMD much more in line with Intel, which made that transition more than a decade ago and has done well, especially in times when it needed the expertise in reorganization when the company was in trouble back in 2005. However, Intel has always been very clear about what it intends to do in the months and years ahead and has never left any doubt as to what it wants. This approach made it very clear what Intel is, and what Intel is not.
Read will have to mirror this approach. He will have to understand what AMD was, what it is and what it can be. He will have to credibly address current concerns, such as manufacturing errors at GlobalFoundries, and the way in which the company will address such problems in the future. Read’s reference to the "AMDer" feels a bit awkward considering that he has been on the job for only two months and has, according to his notes during the conference call, spent most of the time travelling and talking with customers. He will have to understand AMD’s inside passion and understand how to capture the organization’s spirit without the help of scripted speeches. The expectation from the outside was that a new AMD would have to hit the ground running. This may not have been the case with Read, at least according to perception.
Without a precise message on Wednesday, Read may already be struggling to succeed at AMD. He may have the goal for the company to "step out of the shadows of others," but there is nothing more important than to clearly define the goals and capabilities of a company after such a critical layoff announcement.
Credibility
This may be very subjective, but I sense that AMD has, on some levels, a growing credibility issue. Sure, Fusion has had considerable success, AMD has captured market share from Intel in the mobile segment, and I am hearing very confident notes from AMD staff that Trinity is something to anticipate. However, if we are honest, AMD’s technology is way too average today on too many levels. What AMD needs is a true flagship product in its core CPU space – a technology that carries the industry mindshare for an entire company.
Intel has those flagship products, which may not bring in revenues on a product level, but they pay for themselves 1,000 times over in perception creation and marketing. Nvidia is building those products within its Tegra platform and has clearly stated its intentions to include in each product generation at least one feature that comes as a complete surprise to its rivals – such as the fifth power saving core in Kal-El. Such surprises, if executed correctly, can create product and market leadership.
AMD made an attempt to devise such a product with the most recent FX-8150 but largely failed to capture the perception of a flagship product. The pitch greatly represents a similar approach as the 2006 Quad FX, which consisted of two dual-core CPUs that created one quad-core system. It did not offer any performance advantages over a dual-core system and was extremely power hungry.
AMD will need an unquestioned flagship product to support its overall product credibility.
Tablets and Smartphones
Let’s be realistic. AMD’s opportunity to jump on the smartphone and tablet processor train has come and gone. While we can still discuss whether there is a market for tablets outside the iPad, it is apparent just how much Intel is struggling to make a dent in this market and come up with a product that is competitive with ARM architectures. Despite its huge resources, Intel needs years to come up with even a halfway decent product that is suited for tablets. What does that mean for AMD if the company also needs to compete in traditional markets that are the source of its income? Should AMD attempt to break into the smartphone market with an x86 product and face the same uphill battle that Intel has chosen? In addition, AMD has the aforementioned credibility issue because the company never competed in ultramobile space with the exception of its Geode processors on the very low end. If AMD is basically occupied with battling Intel in traditional x86 markets, how could AMD sustain an onslaught of ARM vendors, including Qualcomm, Samsung and especially Nvidia? Taking its x86 architecture into the ultramobile space is a huge risk that perhaps AMD should not be taking.
Instead, it is much more likely for AMD to join Nvidia & Co. in the ARM camp and line up against Intel. Not only is there a new market that is opening up in ARM-based Windows devices, but AMD already has ties at ARM, and it could use its graphics technology to become a key differentiator in this market. Once again, AMD would clash with Nvidia and compete with Qualcomm, which purchased its Imageon graphics technology in 2008 and now calls it Adreno. However, a clash with Nvidia may be more reasonable than dealing with Intel.
Given the traction of the ultramobile market and the ongoing speculation that Read was hired because of Meyer’s lack of an ultramobile product roadmap, AMD will have to make a spectacular mobile announcement this Wednesday. The integration of ARM into its product line could do it.
- AMD,
- Business,
- project-win ,
- restructuring ,
- layoffs ,
- tablets
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AMD should enter the mobile market, as well as develop a flagship product for their CPU market, but is laying off really the best option at this point? Especially figures that have benefit the company?
Only time will tell if Read can guide AMD to prosperity. While reorganization was likely do, I'm not sure this approach is the ideal means to achieve the desired change? With AMD's limited resources chasing the cellphone and tablet market before getting their CPU Biz in order, will be a very tall and optimistic challenge.
Hopefully, this business guy, Read, will have an understanding that innovation is what is required and throw his support to the creative people at AMD. Perhaps Dirk Meyer was let go because he tried to make product development fit his concepts instead of letting his top engineers create???
Time will tell.
I disagree completely. AMD does NOT need a flagship cpu product.
They need to team up with Samsung and dominate Intel in everything.
perhaps AMD has passed its peak and can no longer compete with Intel. we saw this in the 1990s with Cyrix, which made 386 and 486 chips that could compete with Intel's 80x86 line, but fell down after the 150 MHz point, then vanished.
AMD bashed Intel aside with the Athlon series in 2005. But ever since every iteration is falling behind. the FX is a terrible chip as a flagship. Trinity is supposed to be better (especially with improvements to integer calculation), but it will, even if fixed, be a generation behind ivy bridge, maybe 2 if it still only compete with i7-920 of so.
that far behind is a sign of dying.
AMD needs to be offer great products it can produce many of and remain profitable. Let's hope Project WIN doesn't fail. ( I went there)
I disagree completely. AMD does NOT need a flagship cpu product.They need to team up with Samsung and dominate Intel in everything.
And in a hostile fashion...
If AMD were to create an ARM based mobile processor that integrates their graphics core, than they'll be able to not only beat Intel in that market, they'll have a serious chip that gives all other ARM manufacturers a run for their money. A dual-core Fusion"esq" ARM processor. Yeah I would definitely want a tablet with one of those in it.
perhaps AMD has passed its peak and can no longer compete with Intel. we saw this in the 1990s with Cyrix, which made 386 and 486 chips that could compete with Intel's 80x86 line, but fell down after the 150 MHz point, then vanished.
AMD bashed Intel aside with the Athlon series in 2005. But ever since every iteration is falling behind. the FX is a terrible chip as a flagship. Trinity is supposed to be better (especially with improvements to integer calculation), but it will, even if fixed, be a generation behind ivy bridge, maybe 2 if it still only compete with i7-920 of so.
that far behind is a sign of dying.
AMD's first 64 bit processor certainly put them at the top of the game. It was a brief moment when I thought AMD could start to be the top dog.
Would it make more sense for the higher "management" staffs to have 80% salary as well?
Decisions were made and they have consequences, and consequences SHOULD not equal to 10%? (Really?) staffs being fired...
With the new project at hand, I hope AMD good luck, they need it and I certainly don't want Intel NOR Nvidia eating up the whole market.
You see. This, for AMD is something similar to 1997 for Apple Computers Inc.
If Read could be a quarter of S. Jobs maybe AMD will be a winner again. Who knows!
I feel bad for the people who got laid off, but in all honesty, AMD NEEDED a restructuring. It was painfully obvious that the folks they had their were not cutting it. Bulldozer is my proof. So get some fresh blood in, and try again. This time, do BETTER. YES they need a flagship processor that can compete or beat Intel, that goes without saying. I think that their super low voltage systems need to be a side business. Granted the majority of their income came from these low cost APU's. But think of the profit margin if they could release a CPU that could beat Intel at their own game! Or like you mentioned, partner with ARM but still have the ultramobile systems as side business. Their focus needs to be on their amazing GPU's and a processor to match.
I really do love AMD, I am totally vested in them to do well, and I will support them anyway I can to get them their. even if that means buying a subpar processor which is still 10x faster than I need it for.
flaghip cpu, arm+gpu fusion for laptop market and discreet GPU. three areas they can make money. they have gpu experience and a strong showing in discreet gpu sector. they have ties with ARM= high performance GPU+ARM CPU chip. they still need to up their x86 game though so they can regain the reputation of producing fast CPUs so when people think AMD they think 'fast', not 'budget'.
I do not think AMD needs to enter the mobile space, they are at a huge disadvantage to nvidia who has a few years head start. The only thing AMD can bring to the table is graphics, and nvidia already brought that to the table. I personally prefer a solid cpu over a ok cpu + solid graphics, a tablet just is not the form factor for serious gaming, it can be if there were standardized gaming peripheral devices for phones and tablets but right now there is not, and game control are currently based on gyros/accelerometers and touch.
The difference between a flagship product and a mass market product is not much from an engineering perspective. Flagships have all cores enabled, more cache, and some other minor tweeks WRT to mainstream products. To say that AMD needs a flagship product is the same as saying all of AMDs product line needs to be competitive with Intel's product line, which is the same as saying needs help from God.
AMD needs to do 1 thing in the next 2 years, call apple everyday and get them to use the fusion APUs in their notebooks and desktops. With this, AMD will double it's CPU sales, and the income from apple will serve as a stable income stream for years to come. If I was apple, I would use the Liano chips, very balanced chip and energy efficient, not cutting edge but nobody buys apple expecting cutting edge hardware, they expect a cutting edge OS and simplicity.
Although being the dominant processor design, ARM lacks something that AMD has: an x86 license. It is highly possible that AMD will build co-processor that either make on-the-fly x86 recompiling or just do x86 app processing in general for the ARMv8. That will make AMD part of the next generation dominant platform, not only for android/linux but also for the microsoft platform. It will make ARMs dominance extend to both servers and desktops almost immidiately.
Hmm, didn't Read state during the Q3 conference call that 'AMD would not be entering the tablet market?
However, S/A has a similar take to this article - AMD will be entering the ARM mobile market. S/A also mentioned that the AMD layoffs also got rid of some long-standing engineering teams, in particular ALL the fusion related teams not based in Austin. That would have to affect Trinity.
S/A goes on further stating AMD is making a "monumental mistake" by getting an ARM license and moving towards cellphones/tablets etc - they have zero wireless experience and patents, and would face much greater competition in a market with zero margins.
If these rumors pan out, it would seem AMD is going to abandon desktop & server in the next couple of years..
Amd needs new, not just improved. Bulldozer has been in the Amd development room for years, bulldozer would have been fast "a year ago" but to todays standard its just "ok" fast.
I want to see a threads going into the bulldozez cores at the same speed as amds hypertransport
AMD paid McKinsey a lot of money to create "Project Win". Let's hope it was worth it.
AMD should of concentrate on the APU market.
I was hoping to see an faster iteration of the 3850 APU. That would of been a better outcome for them over Bulldozer.
Maybe incorporate the Radeon GPU into a CPU?
Do what intel did when their CPU's were having performance issues
Hire more staff
Put a ton more money into R&D and don't settle until you have a CPU where based on single threaded performance, can beat the competitions core by at least 50%.
It may start off being hugely expensive but when done right, you will cause the market to shift back to you, much like the way they shifted towards intel when they came out with the core 2 CPU's.
When it comes to voluntary marketing (aka not taxes) if you want to stay in business, never ever cut back on customer service. While you may cut back on cost by firing a few thousand workers, you will also make your product less desirable which will cause you t most even more money due to the loss of customers.
Also the statement "$118 million in 2012" does not take into account reality. The only way it can free up that much money is if they don't lose $118 million or more due to lost customers (which is common, when you cut back on service or add uncertainty such as, will this short staffed company be able to provide me with a good performing CPU 5 years from now or should I just build my system around Intel components instead).
AMD, the world leader in:
Graphics
Laptop CPUs and Graphics
Heterogenous Multicore CPUs
Supercomputers
Linux Compatibility (recently in the past few years)
and yet it's still all doom and gloom because Intel has negligibly higher single threaded performance in the ever-shrinking desktop market, and because they're not in the tablet market that doesn't make money anyways... except that there are actually are Brazos tablets... but still...
AMD I say go for an ARM SoC, I would love to see an ARM core + AMD GPU together. I'm currently using a Tegra 2 based device. And the way ARM is going I'd say this is the road to head into. Show the mobile world your graphics prowness.
AMD should enter the mobile market, as well as develop a flagship product for their CPU market, but is laying off really the best option at this point? Especially figures that have benefit the company?
they dont need to have a flagship in the desktop, they just need to be a damn good alturnative, and they are, you have any idea how a large company works, people drag their feet alot if they know they can get away with it.
Carrell Killebrew, who is credited with the creation of Eyefinity
this guy made a name for multiple monitors, and tried to sell us 3 and 6 monitor setups, generaly costing 1000-6000$ and still barely be great for in game use outside of driveing games and i dare you to tell me that stacking 5 monitors verticaly in deus ex doesnt look like crap and is very distracting.
several PR reps; vice president of marketing Margaret Franco
i would have fired them too, years ago. a pr reps job is to make the public ooo and ahh at the screen, while marketing makes people want to buy their products, but amd, for a long time, hasnt shown anything impressive graphically, and where is that one commercial that shows amd in a mobile computer is comperable to an intel, but is hundreds cheaper,
Only time will tell if Read can guide AMD to prosperity. While reorganization was likely do, I'm not sure this approach is the ideal means to achieve the desired change? With AMD's limited resources chasing the cellphone and tablet market before getting their CPU Biz in order, will be a very tall and optimistic challenge.
wait till revision 1 on bulldozer and win8, if amd still falls on its butt than, than i would complain, till than, name a cpu that was epic the moment it came out without a revision.
In true AMD fashion, they will be announcing that Charlie Sheen will be taking over marketing and Project Win will consist of web feeds of Charlie with AMD fanbois screaming "Winning!" while holding up their FX-8150.
perhaps AMD has passed its peak and can no longer compete with Intel. we saw this in the 1990s with Cyrix, which made 386 and 486 chips that could compete with Intel's 80x86 line, but fell down after the 150 MHz point, then vanished.AMD bashed Intel aside with the Athlon series in 2005. But ever since every iteration is falling behind. the FX is a terrible chip as a flagship. Trinity is supposed to be better (especially with improvements to integer calculation), but it will, even if fixed, be a generation behind ivy bridge, maybe 2 if it still only compete with i7-920 of so.that far behind is a sign of dying.
untill recently, and i even say now, amd still provides great value for their chips.
a 955 black costs 125$ and 965 costs 130
an i5 quad core at the lowest costs 190 with a 2500k costing 210
and an i7 costing 300$
id still go phenom over the i series as most things that the i series excels at can be off loaded to the gpu, and in many places the phenom option is only 10% slower. here lets do it this way
phenom 955 at 125, i5 at 190 and i7 at 300
for it to be wroth the cost, the i5 would need to be better than the 955 in everything by 53% and the i7 would need to be better by 240%
now to qualify this a bit, my only requirements for this were a quad core cpu, i went with the 955 because its an unlocked cpu, and to be fair its also the one i have, the i5 and i7 both needed to be quad core, and 3ghz, the personal minimum, in the i7 case, there wasnt anything lower than 300 and sandybridge, and under 3ghz.
At last, Mr. Grueger. Just adding the prefix "Opinion:" to your articles titles makes all the difference in the world. Thank you.
I think AMD could have an interesting partner in the mobile space: Intel. If there's x86 tablets, then why can't AMD make a binary-compatible CPU?
I don't think AMD should be entering the mobile space. This statement comes from the fact that AMD does not have resources it can freely spend on side projects. AMD is much, much smaller than the giant called Intel and even that said giant cannot break into the market.
While some advocate buying out another semiconductor company with ARM license, such as TI, I'd still advise against that. AMD is still bleeding from the ATI acquisition in 2006. That was a huge purchase that in the end made AMD better - but also at the same time, between 2006 and 2011 AMD came close to collapse many times, I think.
I don't think AMD should be entering the mobile space. This statement comes from the fact that AMD does not have resources it can freely spend on side projects. AMD is much, much smaller than the giant called Intel and even that said giant cannot break into the market.While some advocate buying out another semiconductor company with ARM license, such as TI, I'd still advise against that. AMD is still bleeding from the ATI acquisition in 2006. That was a huge purchase that in the end made AMD better - but also at the same time, between 2006 and 2011 AMD came close to collapse many times, I think.
could always buy an arm license themselves. but that said, amd going into mobile space can make sense with windows 8, as amd would need to make the apu very low watt, and could probably dial the cpu portion way back and still compete with an arm based one, at least at the start. or they could put a suficiant battery in one, and not go for the thinnest and lightest title and have little need to scale back completely.
i believe that amd could be closer to a viable mobile processor than intel.
1)first of all amd should advertise their product properly in media..thats because in our region (India) intel and microsoft and nvidia advertise their products regularly by making road campaigns and tv ads shop ads and so on. but we can't find a single ad or campaign from Amd so people here are always know cpu means intel and gpu means nvidia. They doesn't know that some company AMD exits because they can't find AMD products on local shops or any ad campaign of AMD.If some one want a good AMD product he has to order it from online or from dealer and also service is not provided in the locality for that product.
2)At the second AMD should make a good product architecture i.e. that they have a lot of cpu in similar price range so people get confused which product to buy(here amd phenom ii x4 925 costs more than the 955be and equal to the 965).They also need a good product nomenclature format because people get confused by the names of similar products(IN CASE OF GPUs).
3)They should make products which are more compatible with the present software i.e the software and os should properly utilize its full power(Unlike the bulldozer which is almost useless in the present software and os because they can't use its 8 core or 6 core architecture).