AMD Promotes John Byrne to Chief Sales Officer

As chief sales officer, Byrne is responsible for all global accounts and making sure that AMD is perceived as a credible and trustworthy partner. CEO has given Byrne the task of "exceeding the expectations of AMD's largest multinational partners".

While several key positions in AMD's top management have been filled with fresh blood, Byrne has been recruited from AMD's own ranks. Byrne was previously corporate vice president for the Americas region and corporate vice president of worldwide channel and SMB sales before that. He joined AMD in 2009 from Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS), where he served as president.

Over the past year, AMD has replaced all critical pillars of its company leadership with new executives. CEO Rory Read came from Lenovo, CMO Colette LaForce from Dell, chief strategy officer Rajan Naik from McKinsey & Company, CTO Mark Papermaster from Apple/IBM, and Lisa Su, SVP Global Business, from Freescale.

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  • 1ni3shi
    Now AMD just need real products for John to sell.
    Reply
  • azraa
    ... Are you guys serious?
    Sure, sure, we all know that AMD isnt a strong competitor, but some of their products actually compete well against some from Intel. The higher end? helpless, gone to the blue side, but what about HTPCs? Low/mid budget gaming rigs? Come on, you cant tell me that you need an i7 to achieve decent gaming. A 4-core FX with a bit of (easy) overclock is just fine if you dont bottleneck your video card, which is why sites like this exists, to find correct combinations, and as far as I know, CPU bottlenecking from FX chips (in gaming) is not as bad as you think.

    Again, they need to make space to their market. For example, I dont see ANY advertising from AMD in my country, at all. Even less on TV. They do have products to compete with, but most people go, uninformed, to the 'Intel inside'. Now, im not saying Intel's bad, at all. And is still a very good choice at some pricepoints, but they mainly catch people with propaganda, nobody can deny that.

    Bottomline, I really expect this guy to do wonders. Oncoming FX Piledrivers, having Trinity. They need to create awareness inside the uneducated masses. Titanic task, and so, I wish him the best.

    Cheers everyone c:
    Reply
  • ekho
    AMD isn't that bad... IMO, they have to work much more closer with software developers.
    They must hire more programmers to write suitable drivers specially for the Graphics section.
    AMD is really good but without supporting from software developers each new product of AMD turns to be another failure:
    http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMDs-New-FirePro-W8000-W9000-Challenge-Nvidias-Quadro/
    Reply
  • obsama1
    AMD definitely needs better marketing. Their APU's are awesome, but give the average consumer a choice between an APU and Intel CPU, and all of them will go Intel. Intel is very very good, but the average consumer has the mindset that anything Intel is good. If AMD marketed their APU's and how gaming with an APU is superior to gaming on Intel HD, there would be a lot more competition in the CPU market.
    Reply
  • thor220
    obsama1AMD definitely needs better marketing. Their APU's are awesome, but give the average consumer a choice between an APU and Intel CPU, and all of them will go Intel. Intel is very very good, but the average consumer has the mindset that anything Intel is good. If AMD marketed their APU's and how gaming with an APU is superior to gaming on Intel HD, there would be a lot more competition in the CPU market. I wish AMD had more money to put into marketing, or anything really. Intel is just 10 times the size of amd, and it doesn't work in amd's favor. AMD will never sink because intel won't allow it. They need an excuse for their near monopoly. Intel makes a good product, but only because of their dirty business practices in the past.(probably still)
    Reply
  • silverblue
    ekhoAMD isn't that bad... IMO, they have to work much more closer with software developers.They must hire more programmers to write suitable drivers specially for the Graphics section.AMD is really good but without supporting from software developers each new product of AMD turns to be another failure:http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD as-Quadro/If AMD did manage to sort its drivers out (as you say, though that review makes it hard to refute), I'm wondering how much more they could get out of their hardware.
    Reply
  • BoredErica
    If you look at AMD's value compared to Intel's, you can pretty much tell how far behind AMD is despite having decent AMD GPU lines.
    Reply
  • chewy1963
    AMD is at least of semi even footing with Nvidia in the graphics sector, but, unfortunately for them and for the consumer, their CPU/APU sector just can't compete. If gamers didn't use discrete graphics cards then maybe they would have something with their APU, but when you can get a Sandy/Ivy Bridge that flat out beats an AMD unit with twice the cores and you buy a graphics card for less than $50 that will outperform HD graphics and APU graphics it becomes obvious that AMD is in noman's land. If you are talking HTPC, AMD's APUs are no better than Intel's Sandy/Ivy Bridge (at the same price level) for playing movies and videos. They both do 1080p just fine.

    As someone said earlier in this thread, AMD would have gone under already if not for the purchase of ATI.
    Reply
  • notsleep
    didn't john byrne writes and illustrates comics? :P
    Reply
  • azraa
    @chewy1963 are you sure about video playback with sandy? The highest end APU costs about as much as an i3 Sandy, which with Intel HD graphics 2000 stutters at 1080p, thats a well known fact. Without considering dedicated graphics card, as seen here in Tom's, the highest end A8 Llano matches Ivy Bridge i7 (1155 of course) in the graphics area. Which is double or even triple the price range.

    Please verify your facts before talking.
    Anyway, yeah APU doesnt make much sense for hardcore gaming anyway. Dual graphics mode enables users to achieve mid range results... and the pricetag is not really that compelling. But hey, they have better integrated solutions, and in the end, about 90% of global purchases are NOT extreme-oriented.
    Reply