AMD: Fighting the unbeatable foe

Blind ambition

Yet, attempting to shift the dynamics of the MPU market in favor of AMD has been the chief pursuit of the company's executives for decades. They continued deploying resources in furtherance of this goal even as it became obvious the competition was pulling away. AMD's blind desire to beat Intel in process technology and manufacturing efficiencies pushed its competitor to regularly revamp its product line, a strategy Intel honed years ago and which its executives believe has always worked for the company.

Nobody is suggesting AMD throw in the towel and let Intel establish a monopoly in the MPU market. But recognizing the limits of its resources would go a long way toward making the company a more successful IC vendor and bolstering its competitiveness in whichever segments it chooses to participate, commented Louis Savain, an independent software developer/researcher, in an EETimes Web forum.

"Everybody should know by now that AMD's only hope of competing successfully in the processor marketplace is to come up with a new technology that solves the multicore programming problem," Savain wrote. "It must either forge a new market or fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, AMD has been playing a 'monkey-see, monkey-do' game with Intel. The stark reality is that nobody can beat Intel at its own game."

But it wasn't always Intel's game. That's why AMD's Ruiz believes AMD can still trounce Intel, if it can successfully pay down debt—through the sale of business units, if necessary—transition into a more cost-efficient fabless manufacturer and get the courts to declare that Intel violates antitrust laws, thereby forcing the market into a more competitive balance.