AMD Faces Lawsuit Over Llano APU Sales

[Jaroslav Jandek]

@Mousemonkey: It was over-hyped and as I said, they should be punished. But the investor should have done his research (by talking to third parties - like manufacturers and specialists, etc.) when investing large sums of money - people lie, companies do too.

 

[Mousemonkey]

@Mousemonkey: It was over-hyped and as I said, they should be punished. But the investor should have done his research (by talking to third parties - like manufacturers and specialists, etc.) when investing large sums of money - people lie, companies do too.

There are certain laws and legal protections that investors have and rules that companies have to follow, in this case three people at AMD are being accused of flouting or even breaking those laws. Your argument only works at school yard level, in a corporate boardroom you would be laughed at then shown the door.

 

[Jaroslav Jandek]

@Mousemonkey: you misunderstand. They should be punished (the other party should win the lawsuit). The point is: I would not have invested in them based on what they are saying alone - I would do my research (I am repeating myself for the third time - it is doubtful it will help, but who knows).

 

[Mousemonkey]

@Mousemonkey: It was over-hyped and as I said, they should be punished. But the investor should have done his research (by talking to third parties - like manufacturers and specialists, etc.) when investing large sums of money - people lie, companies do too.

There are certain laws and legal protections that investors have and rules that companies have to follow, in this case three people at AMD are being accused of flouting or even breaking those laws. Your argument only works at school yard level, in a corporate boardroom you would be laughed at then shown the door.

What school did you receive your law degree from?

The same one where you learned reading comprehension?

 

[Mousemonkey]

The same one where you learned reading comprehension?

My apologies. You speak with such certainty on the subject matter that one would have to assume you are an expert in the field. I was only curious since you've taken the reins of this discussion.

You mean to that there are no laws governing business matters? If that is the case then how can a lawsuit be filed? According to you there are no laws so how can this be?

 

[ibnmuhammad]

Just want to also say, why does kaveri appear to be a step backwards - the cpu performance is actually worse than the previous gen!? 🙁

@Novuake, @hannibal - thanks guys for your kind replies, regarding my original question above.

Sorry, I know this is off topic, but...

As a developer, I just wish the single module performance (IPC) was much better, in which case I would buy the APU in a heartbeat.
I'm not too concerned about GPU performance, because for the development we do on web servers, as far as I know, there's very little that can be off-loaded onto the GPU. For compiling/intialising our codebase, we're still heavily reliant on pure x86 performance and how fast and efficiently the CPU can make use external memory.

Also the thing is, AMD keep aggresively persuing GPU performance and trying to create a new market to utilise this (GPGPU/OpenCL/Mantle/etc), and it seems they forget that majority of computing (and super-computing applications/servers) is still heavily reliant on the CPU.

Thus, correct me if I'm wrong, but to me it appears that Intel has a good balance with their CPU's and integrated GPU.

 

[Mousemonkey]

@Mousemonkey: It was over-hyped and as I said, they should be punished. But the investor should have done his research (by talking to third parties - like manufacturers and specialists, etc.) when investing large sums of money - people lie, companies do too.

There are certain laws and legal protections that investors have and rules that companies have to follow, in this case three people at AMD are being accused of flouting or even breaking those laws. Your argument only works at school yard level, in a corporate boardroom you would be laughed at then shown the door.

What school did you receive your law degree from?

The same one where you learned reading comprehension?

My apologies. You speak with such certainty on the subject matter that one would have to assume you are an expert in the field. I was only curious since you've taken the reins of this discussion.

You mean to that there are no laws governing business matters? If that is the case then how can a lawsuit be filed? According to you there are no laws so how can this be?

My memory must be foggy, when did I say that? Feel free to provide a quote of where that was said by me.

So what was the purpose of your comment about law school then?

 

[sykozis]

Marketing affects (some) people's decisions. Overhyping is just wrong and should be punished. On the other hand, a professionals should be able to do their own research and not rely on marketing...

Until about 2011, AMD's Computing Division reported more income than their Graphics Division (mostly losses). Since then, it is the other way around (the console deal being an exception). Seems like the ATI acquisition saved their behinds.

If APUs are garbage, why is Intel following suit? Most consumer Intel CPUs are APUs...

SiS and VIA started making IGPs in 2004, Intel in 2009 and AMD in 2011.

You're off by several years....

Intel had IGPs prior to 2004. They were originally under the name "Intel Extreme Graphics" released with the i845G chipset in 2002.

SiS has integrated graphics chips dating back to Socket 7.

AMD has had integrated graphics since at least 2008 if not available in their earlier, pre-ATI chipsets.

 

[Jaroslav Jandek]

...Intel had IGPs prior to 2004. They were originally under the name "Intel Extreme Graphics" released with the i845G chipset in 2002...

The guy I was responding to talked about APUs (on die GPU) - so I was talking about those. The point was to demonstrate that AMD was not the first to come up with that idea (they just named it "APU").

Even if you consider IGP on a chipset, you are off by several years... (see what I did there?)
Intel had the i810 chipset with integrated Intel 740 GPU that was released in 1999 - I have sold quite a few PCs based on that (or the 815G that replaced it).

 

[Mottamort]

Haha only in America can you play the Stock Exchange, and then sue when you lose!

 

[sulanis]

No Product is ever guaranteed. that's the thing with marketing. If the judge of this case had any sense he would throw the case away, because the only ones that are going to hurt from this are the tax payers of California.There are millions of people living in the states and Canada living below the poverty line and yet companies are suing other companies over the dumbest things.Although this is nowhere near as bad as Apple for suing Samsung of a slide feature on a phone lol.

 

[SkateZilla]

waste of court time, welcome to the 21st century, where the answer is to file a law suit.Stock Markets are pretty much Gambling, there's no guaranteed return, regardless what the parent company says, it's ultimately your decision to purchase the stocks.This is nothing but a waste of court room time.

 

[jarred125]

Hmm, AMD starts to gain traction with APUs and GPUs, looking good for 2014. Then, a magic lawsuit appears for a product from 2011?I wonder who is paying for the lawyers? A distant subsidiary of a competitor?

Oh give me a break, AMD is so far from being a threat to Intel. You AMD fanboys crack me up.

 

[bigedmustafa]

This lawsuit was announced a few days before AMD announces its quarterly earnings. It's likely an attempt by investors who've shorted AMD stock to delay or reduce the spike in share price that AMD is likely to see if it announces better-than-expected earnings.AMD's video cards are selling faster than they can make them, and the PS4 and XBone are both shipping with AMD APUs in them. It's not a stretch to imagine that Tuesday afternoon's earnings announcement will be very positive.This lawsuit over Llano APUs is simply a cheap gimmick to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt so the upswing in AMD's share price is either reduced, or at least delay it long enough for short sellers to buy their way out of their short positions.It's a slimy move, but all's fair on Wall Street these days.

 

[falchard]

lol I think AMD can pretty easily defend the position they have the better chipset for this particular market during the time. I think any analysis of CPUs during this period made the Llano APU the best sub-$800 option considering a similar Intel chipset would not have a discrete solution. Poor adoption of a superior product is something anyone would not foresee.

Mustafa, your analysis makes too much sense.

 

[invlem]

So this is EA but in the hardware industry? Prove to me that AMD didn't think the product would do well... "Hey guys, lets develop this APU that no one will want"Generally I'd say a company expects their product to do well, you normally don't shovel millions of dollars of R&D into something if you expect it to tank.Pretty sure every piece of investor material i get from the stocks I have warns you of "forward-looking statements". If they didn't look at things this way they might as well close up shop right now and just throw in the towel...

 

[jaguarskx]

The issue with the lawsuit has to do with official information provided by AMD.

It is important for investors and stock analysts to do their own research. However, it is also important for AMD not to actively or knowingly mislead the general public about the important information about the financial health and future of the company. That also include concealing information. The general public has a right to honest information coming from publicly traded companies so that they can make the correct judgement whether to buy, hold or sell the stock.

Providing false information to the public is a serious offense and it is something the SEC can take action against. This includes fines to AMD itself and putting pressure on the Board of Directors fire and replace senior management including the CEO and CFO. Ultimately,it can also lead to civil trials which can lead to prison sentences should the SEC seek to punish the perpetrators.

While it is easy to say.... "yeah, investing is like play roulette." Even roulette has rules and casino must also abide by the law or face civil / criminal charges.

 

[albert 89]

Stupid get rich quick investors panicked when the price went down at the bottom of the market cycle, incurring a loss. AMD is not to blame. If they had kept their investment & ridden out the decline for another 12 months when the market started to rise then not only would they have gotten their money back but if retained their investment in AMD for another 12 months then they would have made a return of 5% over a 26 month period. Patience is a virtue !

 

[Mousemonkey]

The issue with the lawsuit has to do with official information provided by AMD.

It is important for investors and stock analysts to do their own research. However, it is also important for AMD not to actively or knowingly mislead the general public about the important information about the financial health and future of the company. That also include concealing information. The general public has a right to honest information coming from publicly traded companies so that they can make the correct judgement whether to buy, hold or sell the stock.

Providing false information to the public is a serious offense and it is something the SEC can take action against. This includes fines to AMD itself and putting pressure on the Board of Directors fire and replace senior management including the CEO and CFO. Ultimately,it can also lead to civil trials which can lead to prison sentences should the SEC seek to punish the perpetrators.

While it is easy to say.... "yeah, investing is like play roulette." Even roulette has rules and casino must also abide by the law or face civil / criminal charges.

Its quite obvious from the some/most of the comments that the AMD fans don't or can't understand that.

 

[albert 89]

AMD has no control over how strongly people feel about their stock. Nor is it responsible for the actions of investors in making investment decisions. Investors are advised that profit or loss of a company is not the main driver of stock price. Investors are encouraged to seek advice from a licenced or certified broker or investment advisor before making investment decisions. I am an investor of AMD stock and found it to be profitable over the long term as I always felt its price would recover after a down turn. Instead of selling I decided to hold on to this stock & wait until I could at the very least get my money back. Fortunately for me, it worked & I still own AMD stock with a small profit. I see AMD's growth to slowly increase over the long term at the very least. I am a private speculative investor who has seen my fare share of losses & some gains over many years. Shifting the blame to AMD does not absolve the victims of all responsibility.

 

[Mousemonkey]

AMD has no control over how strongly people feel about their stock. Nor is it responsible for the actions of investors in making investment decisions. Investors are advised that profit or loss of a company is not the main driver of stock price. Investors are encouraged to seek advice from a licenced or certified broker or investment advisor before making investment decisions. I am an investor of AMD stock and found it to be profitable over the long term as I always felt its price would recover after a down turn. Instead of selling I decided to hold on to this stock & wait until I could at the very least get my money back. Fortunately for me, it worked & I still own AMD stock with a small profit. I see AMD's growth to slowly increase over the long term at the very least. I am a private speculative investor who has seen my fare share of losses & some gains over many years. Shifting the blame to AMD does not absolve the victims of all responsibility.

Did you have three of AMD's top brass personally telling you how wonderful things were?

 

[albert 89]

No, I didn't have the top brass to rely on.
But would you have confidently bought stock in Lehman Brothers based on the firm advice of Moody's AAA credit rating ???
A: I would not have & I didn't. But sadly you & many would have. And that's the difference.

 

[Mousemonkey]

No, I didn't have the top brass to rely on.
But would you have confidently bought stock in Lehman Brothers based on the firm advice of Moody's AAA credit rating ???
A: I would not have & I didn't. But sadly you & many would have. And that's the difference.

Actually I didn't so you are quite wrong on that.

 

[SessouXFX]

I wouldn't say that AMD is just plain bad. For the price, anyone looking to get into computers can hardly go wrong with AMD.

But these APUs simply aren't up to the task, if you're looking to get heavily involved with work or heavy gaming. They're more for low budget web surfing or playing farmville and angry birds. You can do better than an APU right now. Go grab yourself an old Phenom and a low range card, that will at least hold you until you're ready for something better.

Now, why the investors crying about being lied to, when they surely had to of known that APUs under AMD are still budding technology, I say they cheated themselves in this respect. That's the price of gambling on unproven technology. They should just bite the bullet and call it a loss.

... Mainly because APUs are not made for serious gaming. On the other hand APU use much less power that old Phenom and a GPU. And it can run farmwille and everything else that normal people are going to do with a computer! The problem is that normal people can do everything they need with a tablet like iPad...
Gamers are better to go in the high end to Intel for CPU and AMD/Nvidia for GPU and in the middle range AMD or Intel cpu with middle range AMD/Nvidia GPU. The only thing is that about 1-2% of PC users are gamers that need a sepatere GPU, the rest of the world need a little bit less power in their systems. For them a good APU is quite perfect solution, but as I allready said, so is allso a tablet computer...

So basically, this is wasted resource, considering the options available? The biggest issue with APUs in the end is, just who are they trying to target with them, at this point and time?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Hmm, AMD starts to gain traction with APUs and GPUs, looking good for 2014. Then, a magic lawsuit appears for a product from 2011?I wonder who is paying for the lawyers? A distant subsidiary of a competitor?

Oh give me a break, AMD is so far from being a threat to Intel. You AMD fanboys crack me up.

This lawsuit was announced a few days before AMD announces its quarterly earnings. It's likely an attempt by investors who've shorted AMD stock to delay or reduce the spike in share price that AMD is likely to see if it announces better-than-expected earnings.AMD's video cards are selling faster than they can make them, and the PS4 and XBone are both shipping with AMD APUs in them. It's not a stretch to imagine that Tuesday afternoon's earnings announcement will be very positive.This lawsuit over Llano APUs is simply a cheap gimmick to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt so the upswing in AMD's share price is either reduced, or at least delay it long enough for short sellers to buy their way out of their short positions.It's a slimy move, but all's fair on Wall Street these days.

So this is EA but in the hardware industry? Prove to me that AMD didn't think the product would do well... "Hey guys, lets develop this APU that no one will want"Generally I'd say a company expects their product to do well, you normally don't shovel millions of dollars of R&D into something if you expect it to tank.Pretty sure every piece of investor material i get from the stocks I have warns you of "forward-looking statements". If they didn't look at things this way they might as well close up shop right now and just throw in the towel...

@jarred125: When did I say threat? The only threat to Intel is Intel. They are 100+ times larger than AMD, have no other direct competitor, and have more patents than cells in your body. Don't put words in my mouth.

Call me a fanboy all you want, but I don't believe in coincidental timing of this "lawsuit".

That's a bit rich coming from you as you still haven't shown where I'm supposed to have said you should buy into G-Sync.