AMD Preparing For More Layoffs

[omnimodis78]

[citation][nom]ipwn3r456[/nom]AMD is actually doing pretty well right now... Their GPU's are great for the price, CPUs are doing better now. Why AMD have to do this?[/citation]
Because decisions (cost decision, that is) are based on past financials, not future projections, especially when the owners of the company (the shareholders) are biting their nails off wondering what exactly can AMD do to even stay in the game. I have been using AMD CPUs for the past ~7 years honestly I am tired of reading chart after chart, benchmark after benchmark, how AMD CPUs are moving down the scale. No pci-e 3 support? On the newest generation offerings? Sure, argue that PCI-E 3 is pointless, but are you really not going to at least give the impression that you're up with the times..... Yeah yeah I know it's a very specific and arguable point, but it's a point nonetheless. I hope AMD survives, and I think they will - but this is not the first time they've put themselves on practical life-support. Really crappy management team.

 

[notsleep]

arm will buy amd and kill the 'amd' name.

 

[ddpruitt]

People look at the reality of things. AMD is not going anywhere anytime soon. Most next gen consoles will have some sort of AMD chip in them, this alone will make the company survive because console makers will have problems if AMD disappears.

If you didn't see this coming you were blind, every company usually does 3 or 4 rounds worth of layoffs before they get where they need to be, by my count we'll see at least one more set of layoffs. The truth is AMD's got too many duplicated resources since the aquisition of ATI and needs to get rid of a lot, this is what they're doing. Besides they haven't even considered bankruptcy yet.

 

[cookoy]

Morale sure is not getting any better at AMD. How sad if the only way to cut losses is to keep laying off people. And their statement "AMD ... not actively pursuing ... at this time." is not really reassuring.

 

[natoco]

Create a worldwide AMD Day! everyone buy a amd cpu of any make, say $50 upwards to keep them going. That 50 u save will be 50 back in your pocket when u can still buy an intel cpu for a resonable price vs the other option. Amd collapses and intels prices soar cause they have everyone over a barrel.

 

[chewy1963]

Ok here it is in a nutshell. Ever since AMD split up with Global Foundries, they have essentially been a design house (similar to ARM). Where they used to have control over things like fab production, they no longer do. Also a few years ago, management of AMD essentially banned 'hand designs' in the CPU arena. This reduces the ability to innovate as your chips are now as good as your design software instead of being as good as your best designers. Also they have essentially brought in a new executive leadership because they didn't like the performance of the last group. Well the problem with that is, you have to bring in new execs that are BETTER than the old ones. Instead, this current group seems to be lateral move at best and considerably worse than the old group at worst.

Now combine those three things (divestment of GF, stifling innovation by mandating design software, and hiring an even worse set of exectutives) and you have a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, there is ALOT to fix with AMD. Their graphics side of the house is at least competitive, but their CPU/APU business has been abysmal! They are slowly getting better, but the problem is that their competition (Intel) is not a stationary target. The next iteration is a 'Tock' iteration (Haswell) which will in all likelihood be a much bigger performance bump than sandybridge to ivybridge was. (Think westmere to sandybridge)

 

[chewy1963]

Sorry that was a bigger nutshell than it seemed like in my head! :lol:

 

[chamnaplong]

AMD GPU is also as good as nVidia, but they don't have their own glasses for Stereoscopic 3D

 

[kristi_metal]

In short time, there will be nobody to work at that company, of course except for the management, they should get replaced first.

 

[deksman]

[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]Huh? Their CPUs can't compete with intels last gen chips.[/citation]

The desktop versions are basically on par with Ivy Bridge i5 cpu's coming very close to i7 (larger difference comes in their power draw - Intel is more energy efficient and offers more performance per Watt).

Mobile APU from AMD in terms of A10-4600m is on par with mobile Ivy Bridge i3 (the reason being because AMD's 'quad' is not actually a quad in a sense as we understand it, but rather a dual core chip that uses its own multithreading version of Intel).

As for AMD moving away from competitive notions with Intel... I personally hate competition.
These 2 companies (just like other commercial companies) are basically always trailing each other in terms of CPU capability but neither tries to bring something 'revolutionary' to the table (even though they could have a LONG time ago) because it would be 'cost prohibitive'.

Using current methods of production and inefficient materials (which the ENTIRE industry uses because its 'cheap' for them), AMD is essentially behind Intel - but its possible this was also intentional due to their previous announcement that they are focusing more on mobile solutions.
That, and seeing how 'money' dictates everything for these companies, Intel simply has more of it to spare.

For majority of people, AMD's solutions (mobile and otherwise) are actually good enough.
Problems crop up due to Intel simply having more money and being able to advertise better, not to mention that in the mobile sector, laptop manufacturers use AMD apu's in REALLY idiotic form factors such as the A10-4600m with no discrete gpu in a 17" laptop.
Seriously?
I mean, I know some people might enjoy bigger screens, but for the hardware we are talking about, netbooks/ultrabooks would be the area where APu's would be great.

 

[pepe2907]

[citation][nom]ipwn3r456[/nom]AMD is actually doing pretty well right now... Their GPU's are great for the price, CPUs are doing better now. Why AMD have to do this?[/citation]

Probably because their boss is a businessman, not somebody who actually cares about technology /or really understands it, or want to/

I am really sad about ATI however.

 

[pepe2907]

"...These 2 companies (just like other commercial companies) are basically always trailing each other in terms of CPU capability but neither tries to bring something 'revolutionary' to the table (even though they could have a LONG time ago) because it would be 'cost prohibitive'. ..."

Actually I think AMD is kind of trying to do this with pushing to integrating GPU to be used effectively as a calculation coprocessor.

 

[ojas]

I remember reading that this time the layoffs aren't expected to be major.

 

[tigeryeow]

i thought amd's gpu department is doing well and the new fx is pretty good sad to see them like this

 

[Guest]

I've been reading Tom's for about 7 years or so(not sure why), and I've noticed a trend that if there's a rumor that AMD *might* fire 2 people, it's newsworthy, but if Intel lets a few thousand people go, Tom's pretends like it didn't happen.

Then there's constantly calling AMD's executive management incompetent for not being able to surpass Intel despite Intel's constant monopoly abuse and OEM arm twisting to hamstring AMD's profits(and by extension, R&D), but if one their executives quits or gets fired, Tom's flips the script and says "OMG, AMD IS LOSING TOP EXECUTIVE TALENT, THERE'S NO HOPE FOR THEM NOW!!!"

 

[zeratul600]

COME ON INTEL Be like Good Guy Greg! buy amd assets!

 

[Guest]

Sing it with me!

"I hate to leave you, but I really must say. Goodnight, my sweetheart, goodnight......"

 

[mikenygmail]

Intel and Nvidia's paid bashers are all over the place in one form or another. They're on the yahoo finance message boards, posting anti-AMD messages on AMD's message boards. They've repeatedly posted outright lies claiming that AMD is in the process of declaring bankruptsy, or will go bankrupt since 2008.

AMD's Piledriver CPU's are great. AMD desktop and laptop APU's have no competition and can actually run games reasonably well, unlike any Intel product. AMD is even making tablet APU's now, and ARM chips are on the way.

The last time AMD's stock was under $2, it went up to $10 in less than a year - all when AMD was in a much worse position than now. This took place from February to December in 2009. Don't expect the stock to stay this cheap for long!

Bottom line, don't believe the BS and support AMD. This actually helps lower prices for us all.

 

[Guest]

"mikenygmail" forgot to say his comment was "payed for by AMD"

:rollseyes:

 

[mikenygmail]

[citation][nom]JustPosting82[/nom]"mikenygmail" forgot to say his comment was "payed for by AMD"[/citation]

Wrong, twice.

1) No, I have not been paid by anyone, but it looks like the same cannot be said for you!
2) "payed for?" really? try "paid for" Intel needs to hire smarter AMD bashers.

 

[natoco]

Personally i think intel is being nice to amd, next year when haswell comes out they could destroy them if they like, they have allready said they have apu's with x6 the performance of hd4000 so if that came out amd will loose everything but there gpu line, and they are not going to do that so thats what i call 'being nice'
Everyone goes on about these new apu's like they are good, well they are 1/4 the performance of my 3yr old desktop which feels like its getting long in the tooth now. I have looked at the benchmarks and at that performace level i would want to throw it out the window lol.

 

[mikenygmail]

[citation][nom]natoco[/nom]Everyone goes on about these new apu's[/citation]

Of course everyone goes on about AMD's APU's. That's because AMD desktop and laptop APU's have no competition and can actually run games reasonably well, unlike any intel product.

Try gaming using intel integrated graphics and you'll get a horrible slide show. Intel tried to produce a video card, and failed miserably.

 

[natoco]

Yes it would be an even crapier experience than the allready crap one you would get on the amd one. gaming on a laptop is just terible once you have seen what desktops do, plus the massive screens rock. If someone gave me one i doubt i would even use the thing for anything other than puting video to the tv via hdmi and then you want minium power usage while doing that so haswell will be better for that purpose i think. But then the laptop will prob come with win8 oh god, im just going to keep my money rather than spend it on rubish.

 

[Thomas Creel]

Heart goes out to all those being effected by the layoffs, in this economy I hope you have a big savins because the job market is tough.

 

[umadrabbit]

First off. Maybe the writer of this article should get his s*** straight before writing something? It's said that AMD MAY be facing more layoffs in the start of 2013 (Also that's layoffs in the management not in the engineering department), also that IS NOT certain yet that anything is going to happen.

Secondly.
Some who are comparing stock prices should actually read financial sites for quotes why is the stock jumping and falling lately, first the rumor of selling AMD, meh. Secondly the rumor of selling again due to a PR company, meh. Both were without any facts while Read clearly said AMD is NOT looking to sell anything any time soon.

Thirdly.

AMD's PD ain't competitive with Intel's counterparts (i5's)? I beg you differ. 8350 is 90% of the speed of an 3770k which is $120 more expensive. I'm sorry but if You call that not competitive then I must say that You really can't look further then your own ego. Then comes the TDP. Sure AMD is way behind but what did you expect? AMD is still on 32nm with higher transistor count, higher clocks and more "cores" (Without a doubt weaker cores than Intel has, not going to argue) while Intel is steadily rocking 22nm already.

This is just my 2 cents. You can label me what ever you want, I don't care. I got my own opinion, you got yours.