AMD Looking For New CEO as Dirk Meyer Resigns
Changes at the top for AMD.
AMD had a great presence at CES with its fantastic Fusion products in many vendors' devices. Today, but big news isn't about a new chip, but a shift in leadership.
AMD today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Senior Vice President and CFO Thomas Seifert, 47, as interim CEO following the resignation of Dirk Meyer, 49, as president, CEO and a director of the company effective immediately.
Seifert will maintain his current responsibilities as CFO and has asked not to be considered for the permanent CEO position.
“AMD enters 2011 with considerable product and financial momentum. Our roadmap for the year, including our “Llano” APU and 32nm “Bulldozer” based processors remain on track,” said Seifert. “I believe we have significant opportunities to cement our leadership positions in several key market segments based on the strength of our upcoming products.”
A CEO Search Committee has been formed to begin the search for a new CEO. The committee is led by Bruce Claflin, Chairman of AMD’s Board of Directors, who has been named Executive Chairman of the Board as he assumes additional oversight responsibilities during the transition period.
“Dirk became CEO during difficult times. He successfully stabilized AMD while simultaneously concluding strategic initiatives including the launch of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, the successful settlement of our litigation with Intel and delivering Fusion APUs to the market,” said Claflin.
”However, the Board believes we have the opportunity to create increased shareholder value over time. This will require the company to have significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns. We believe a change in leadership at this time will accelerate the company’s ability to accomplish these objectives.
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AMD is announcing certain preliminary results for the fourth quarter 2010. Fourth quarter revenue increased 2 percent sequentially to approximately $1.65 billion and gross margin was approximately 45 percent.
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keplenk Oh my! Maybe the name of her EX-Wife is Sandy which made him running scared.Reply
This could either be a good or bad start for AMD this 2011. -
erdinger Well maybe it's a good choice to change a bad weather CEO who pulled AMD out of the dirt in times where AMD has a lot of opportunities for growth with it's new products comming up soon. Maybe another CEO will be able to make more of AMD's good position which might come (we don't have bulldozer benchis so who knows)Reply -
Onus Hmmm, that almost sounds like he was fired. I hope poor performance of Bulldozer was not a reason for it.Reply
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cp8427 I'm not liking this news. Methinks I'll have to pass on Bulldozer... I'm an AMD fan, but stuff like this kinda implies something must have gone wrong.Reply -
silky salamandr This is great. They need to take the company in a new direction so they FIRE the CEO but in an agreement, he gets to silently walk away with millions.Reply
I can promise this bulldozer(which pretty much is a figmant of peoples imagination) was not going to live up to the hype after our girl Sandy pretty much blew the doors off anything AMD could even think of producing.
AMD does nothing but get the scraps that Intel and others dont want and It shows and thats why The CEO was fired.
Dont be surprised if they can "Bulldozer" and focus on 28nm chips. -
erdinger The most important thing for Bulldozer wont be the desktop CPU's where sandybringe shines with its new video transcoding fixed function hardware.Reply
It will be much more important for AMD if it can gain the crown in the Server market. Bulldozer is built for highly threaded performance. If it can compete in the server market AMD is going to do well -
willard This is what happens when you consistently fail to grow the company and repeatedly post gigantic losses. Just two years ago they posted a quarterly loss of a whopping $300M. Q2 last year was a loss of $43M, and Q3 was a loss of $118M. They are hemorrhaging money, while their competitors post huge profits. To compare, Nvidia's last three quarters were all positive, $137M, $131M and $77M. Intel's numbers are positively obscene.Reply
Why is it that people are so attached to AMD? It's got to be some kind of underdog thing, just wanting to see the little guy beat the big guy.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but AMD is just a company. A company that's been playing second fiddle to Intel (and more recently, Nvidia) for a long time. Current AMD processors are a generation and a half behind current Intel processors, and I'd wager damn near anything that Intel will be launching even faster i7 chips long before Bulldozer ever sees the market. If Bulldozer isn't as good as Sandy (and I'm guessing it isn't based on the last couple matchups between Intel and AMD), then they're set up to lose even more money.
Sometimes you just have to face facts and admit that you've been beaten. AMD seems to have done just this and is doing what they can to try to turn things around. I wish them the best of luck, but I'm not too optimistic.