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AMD shakes things up, again
Trio of seasoned CPU veterans set to lead new AMD division – but will it mean a return to great things?
AMD may not have the upper hand in the processor business,
but it’s shaping up to be the king of ‘organisational and executive changes’. After
denying it was laying off 5 per cent of its workforce in March,
the company went on to make double that number redundant.
Now, as part of ‘ongoing efforts to re-architect its business
for sustained profitability’, AMD has created a Central Engineering
section.
Most tellingly, one of the executives put in charge of the
new division is Randy Allen, who oversaw the original introduction of the
Opteron and Athlon 64. So perhaps AMD is hoping to regain its former glory days, when the first version of its AMD64 architecture humbled Intel’s competing Netburst designs. Allen will be joined by
Chekib Akrout, formerly of Freescale and IBM, where he was responsible for the
Cell microprocessor found in the Playstation 3, and the Xenon found in the Xbox
360. Another AMD employee, Jeff VerHeul, will make up the final third of the trio
of heavy-hitters. VerHeul is also a former IBM employee, where he was head of
engineering and technical services at the end of a 25-year career. He came over
to AMD in 2005.
However, behind many a ‘restructure’ lies a darker story.
Mario Rivas, formerly executive vice president, Computing Solutions Group and
Michel Cadieux, formerly senior vice president and Chief Talent Officer, have ‘left
AMD to pursue new opportunities’. We wonder if those new opportunities involve
greater time for gardening.
AMD has certainly gathered together some talented
individuals for its new Central Engineering division. The question remains
whether they have what it takes to turn things around, and make the Phenom’s
successors competitive again – particularly with Intel’s forthcoming Nehalem
architecture looming. But they certainly have the right track records.
Related: official AMD announcement about the creation of
the Central Engineering division.
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sorry to go on and on, but firstly alotof the time, restructuring does reap benefits in businesses. We all know that the recent setup AMD had wasn't producing good results.."If it aint broke don't fix it"...well it was broken and now they may just have fixed it! Also it may be a good thing that AMd aren't sining their new ideas from the rooftops, it hasn't sered them well or done them any favours, much like a British army general going on Al-Jazeera interview about current tactics in Iraq...just wouldn't help his own side...
Comment by EdArch at 1:27pm 17th May 2008
AMD would still have the same people running their cpu department regardless of ATi so they'd probably still be in the same position. Yes the new guys seem to have an excellent amount of experience under their belt. Both xbox and ps3 have excellent hardware and AMD have a history of working with IBM to reduce die-sizes so the IBM uys probably know the AMD architecture wuite well and how to make it work better. And let's face it, regardless of your current preference, the original Athlns did kick some serious ass so let's hope this new team can work together without the usual PR crap that we've heard from AMD of late and get on with producing some seriously competitive and innovative processors. And yes why not have Via make a leap forward too? their ultra energy-efficient models are (in consumption terms) something both AMD and intel can learn from.
Comment by EdArch at 1:27pm 17th May 2008
I wonder if AMD would be in this hole even if they hadnt bought ATI. At moment (at least in my eyes) does it look like that was started this whole pile of cack, but then again I wonder if AMD wouldnt be in the same position they are in now anyway. They just doesnt seem to have a good/competitive roadmap for the CPU market, and I assume that would have been the case even without ATI. THough without ATI they would probably have had slightly more money and ATI would probably still be competing with nVidia
Comment by jonisaksson at 8:08am 15th May 2008
'Whatever' Or 'When we see it we'll believe it' Come to mind here.....?! taking a step back and taking a look at the histories of these two CPU companies, Intel had a long stem of time before it came out with its incredible successors, whilst AMD 'milked it' with its 64bit stuff... Now intel is milking it, do you reckon AMD could spring a suprise chicken thats extremly competitive against Intels Forthcoming? From recent reports it looks very very unlikely, considering it hasnt even got round to the naming of its successors to the incredibly badly priced phenoms, considering their performance positions against any intel processor equvilant. I want to see VIA getting in on the double and quad dual action, bringing yet a much more competitive market, and hopefully even cheaper blistering fast cpu's! Lets hope by 2010 this happens !!!
Comment by Lightning_Pete at 1:00pm 14th May 2008
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