AMD Preparing For More Layoffs

[youssef 2010]

Damn, this company keeps getting smaller and smaller. I wish it could rise again to its former glory. I'm talking about the CPU division of course

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]chewy1963[/nom]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.[/citation]While they do automate more than they used to, it's not like they never used automation before. Intel uses automated design software too, you know. Man it's really holding them back! /sarcasm

You completely forgot 2007-2008. Are you going to blame their inability to compete with C2Q on automated design? If you think their woes started with Bulldozer, you're mistaken. I bet you completely forgot about the original Phenom. It was late to the party and underwhelming. That doesn't even include the TLB bug for early steppings. A year later they released Phenom II.

But even then what really saved them during most of the Phenom II era was competitive pricing, overclocking, and core unlocking. That was good for us, but not so much for AMD's cash flow. I don't know if they can pull off another turnaround in the enthusiast market. But they did regain a lot of their competitiveness on the APU front, and I'd like to see them continue with that momentum.

 

[englandr753]

My opinion is that AMD failed in the relationships with the retailers that sold their products. I remember going into Microcenter when Intel first introduced the Core 2 Duo CPU and they had two reps there running a racing emulator that was a hell of a set up. Id say it was about a 10,000.00 rig with the steering, frame and pc mounted with the monitor attached to the front. Intel did a very good job getting the product out and making sure the consumers and the retailers that sell their products to consumers understand what their product was about and their method worked. I'm mainly trying to say that AMD didn't necessarily need to take it to that level but they definitely should've done a better job getting a rep to meet with a rep from every major retailer and developing a plan to ensure that there wouldn't be statements made by their sales staff to consumers such as "If you want a fast computer, you have to go Intel. Right now AMD is much slower than Intel and you wont be happy with an AMD CPU".

Before you say, "that's a true statement!", you have to understand that most consumers that walk into a Best Buy, Microcenter, Fry's, etc, aren't in need of the fastest cpu out there and AMD has always had a good mid range cpu that can handle anything that 80% or better of the consumers out there need and AMD should've developed a better relationship with its primary retailers to ensure their sales staff didn't misguide the majority of their consumers to an "Intel Only" purchase. I've personally overheard several of these types of sales pitches from every major retailer in my area and AMD could've done a better job preventing that from happening.

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

This just makes me cry