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resistion
It seems the board did not feel AMD under Meyer would tackle ...
KB3001
I am not sure Microsoft has that clout anymore. In the handheld devices market, ...
CEO Meyer resigns from AMD
Dylan McGrath
1/10/2011 5:45 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO—Dirk Meyer, president and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., has resigned from the company after two years as its top executive, AMD said Monday (Jan. 10).
Thomas Seifert, AMD's chief financial officer and senior vice president, has been appointed interim CEO of AMD, the company said.
Meyer took the reins at AMD in July 2008, succeeding longtime chief Hector Ruiz. He first joined AMD in 1996.
AMD said Monday that Meyer resigned after reaching a "mutual agreement" with the company's board of directors.
In a statement, Bruce Claflin, chairman of AMD’s board of directors, said the board believed a change in leadership was required to help AMD capitalize on the opportunity to "create increased shareholder value over time."
"Given the abruptness of the departure, and the fact there is no transition period, it's pretty obvious Meyer and the AMD board came to loggerheads over something fairly substantial," said Paul McWilliams, editor of the technology investment newsletter Next Inning Technology Research, in a report to subscribers circulated late Monday. McWilliams said he didn't have enough background to guess about the specifics, but said of Meyer, "on balance, I was happy with the results he produced during his tenure."
Also Monday, AMD said preliminary results indicated that the company's fourth quarter sales increased 2 percent sequentially to about $1.65 billion. This total would exceed consensus analysts' expectations, which called for fourth quarter revenue of about $1.62 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
AMD said it has formed a CEO search committee, led by Claflin, who has been named executive chairman of the board as he assumes additional oversight responsibilities during the transition period. Seifert will maintain his current responsibilities as CFO and has asked not to be considered for the permanent CEO position, AMD said.
Seifert joined AMD in 2009 and has more than 20 years of general management, global operations and financial management experience, according to AMD. He previously served as CFO and chief operating officer at Qimonda AG.
Thomas Seifert, AMD's chief financial officer and senior vice president, has been appointed interim CEO of AMD, the company said.
Meyer took the reins at AMD in July 2008, succeeding longtime chief Hector Ruiz. He first joined AMD in 1996.
AMD said Monday that Meyer resigned after reaching a "mutual agreement" with the company's board of directors.
In a statement, Bruce Claflin, chairman of AMD’s board of directors, said the board believed a change in leadership was required to help AMD capitalize on the opportunity to "create increased shareholder value over time."
"Given the abruptness of the departure, and the fact there is no transition period, it's pretty obvious Meyer and the AMD board came to loggerheads over something fairly substantial," said Paul McWilliams, editor of the technology investment newsletter Next Inning Technology Research, in a report to subscribers circulated late Monday. McWilliams said he didn't have enough background to guess about the specifics, but said of Meyer, "on balance, I was happy with the results he produced during his tenure."
Also Monday, AMD said preliminary results indicated that the company's fourth quarter sales increased 2 percent sequentially to about $1.65 billion. This total would exceed consensus analysts' expectations, which called for fourth quarter revenue of about $1.62 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
AMD said it has formed a CEO search committee, led by Claflin, who has been named executive chairman of the board as he assumes additional oversight responsibilities during the transition period. Seifert will maintain his current responsibilities as CFO and has asked not to be considered for the permanent CEO position, AMD said.Seifert joined AMD in 2009 and has more than 20 years of general management, global operations and financial management experience, according to AMD. He previously served as CFO and chief operating officer at Qimonda AG.
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Baolt
1/10/2011 6:59 PM EST
Any insider who can help to figure out whats really happening at AMD? They just released a brilliant solution for future of computing, fixed GF and IP issues with rivals and why to resign now?
Serious conflict with board or another nice magazine story ? :)
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goafrit
1/10/2011 8:38 PM EST
A good question. I thought they are doing good.
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Les_Slater
1/10/2011 7:43 PM EST
Met him years ago during his tenure as development lead for the original Athlon. It was interesting to hear him talk about the methodological differences between AMD and Intel. The team he led was much smaller than any that Intel could muster. Their approach was to use as much design automation as possible and skip most of the time and resource consuming manual tweaks. Consequently this would allow them to aggressively introduce new architectural innovations.
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tritchie
1/10/2011 8:14 PM EST
Could this proceed someone buying AMD?
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will99878898
1/10/2011 10:23 PM EST
Thomas Seifert
no wonder sounds so familiar, ex COO from Qi.
I bet he would recommend someone like Lou Kian Wah for this post.
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daleste
1/10/2011 11:54 PM EST
Interesting. I hope the next CEO can do some things to help AMD become a better competitor to Intel.
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will99878898
1/11/2011 2:48 AM EST
AMD is a typical atheist company and it will never grow to a larger size.
it will be tormented by it's own devil.
it could take a bite on intel if intel miss it's own step.
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yalanand
1/11/2011 6:02 AM EST
@daleste do you mean to say the current CEO was removed because of his performance issue ?
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daleste
1/11/2011 8:27 AM EST
AMD has had some sucess in the microprocessor market against Intel, but they aren't any where close to equals. They have been diversifying and moving to fab-lite(less?). I don't see them as a threat to Intel's market share anymore. I guess the CEO is always to blame.
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Neo1
1/11/2011 4:56 AM EST
Bad timing for AMD when it was just about to give out the good news, but it must have been a serious tussle then.
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Warren
1/11/2011 11:44 AM EST
Coincidence that nVidia wins big with ARM SOC support in Win8, nVidia and Intel settle past and future IP disputes, and AMD CEO hits the bricks?
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dylan.mcgrath
1/11/2011 1:52 PM EST
Any wild speculation on who will succeed Meyer at AMD?
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gutiea
1/11/2011 3:56 PM EST
It should be succeeded by an executive from Qualcomm, nVidia o Broadcom, they are leading performers in what AMD is trying to become.
Another theory; a conflict of interest about wafer pricing and volumes being outsourced to Globalfoundries?
TSMC is offering much better prices per wafer, then why continue to subsidize Globalfoundries now that AMD owns less than 14% of Glofo.
A rational board acting on the best interest of AMD shareholders would demand large scale fabrication outsourcing to TSMC.
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Mapou
1/11/2011 4:06 PM EST
It does not matter who replaces Meyer. AMD made a big mistake by focusing on competing with Intel when it should have been working on a competitive tablet processor. Both Intel's and AMD's hybrid strategy of combining last century's boomer-geek CPU and GPU technologies is wrongheaded. Larrabee was the first big failure of that strategy and AMD's Fusion will be the next.
One of the big problems with boomer geek technology is their infatuation with the Turing machine as God's gift to humanity. The Turing computing model is turning out to be a complete catastrophe when it comes to parallel programming. Not to mention that it has been a disaster with regard to software reliability and productivity from the beginning.
However, the worst problem with boomer geek technology is the memory bandwidth bottleneck. This will kill any and all progress in the age of massive parallelism. This is the nasty problem that will kill Intel and everyone else and it is the problem Dirk Meyer should have been focusing on.
Google "How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis" for insights into possible solutions.
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SallyF
1/12/2011 2:34 PM EST
The problem for a long time has been Microsoft's monopoly. Microsoft dictates how the hardware will be built and also controls how the hardware capabilities are accessed. In addition, Microsoft's new "programming languages" are going in the exact opposite direction from what is needed for parallel programming. Microsoft, not Intel or AMD, controls the direction of the computing world. One of Microsoft's execs in charge of developments was recently quoted in InfoWeek as saying that Microsoft will approach parallel programming with multiple iterations of their operating system, lanugages, and development environment OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS! The hundreds of billions of dollars we'll have to spend between now and then on progressive iterations may benefit them, but it is a disaster for the economy.
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KB3001
1/14/2011 6:34 AM EST
I am not sure Microsoft has that clout anymore. In the handheld devices market, they are far from dominant, and in the large servers market, they are not that dominant either.
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docdivakar
1/11/2011 4:21 PM EST
Seems like Dirk Meyer had AMD on the right track given the financial performance and their new products. I have seen some new server teardowns that use its CPU-GPU combo that seemed to yield screaming performance (with hardware-level hypervisor) in a multicore environment. Of course, the price premiums over the value they deliver and the performance will have to be looked at. Also, @Mapou is right in saying that the memory bandwidth bottleneck will be the deciding factor.
Dr. MP Divakar
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MtnView101
1/11/2011 6:32 PM EST
Insiders say Mark Thompson of Fairchild is a contender. Young, innovative, West Coast Savy.
A new Jerry Saunders ?
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Les_Slater
1/11/2011 9:50 PM EST
Mapou's response about boomer geek is the best yet. I agree.
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Stotch
1/11/2011 10:11 PM EST
AMD's only hope for the future is to get an ARM license and starting making ARM based AMD processors.
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Ramesh.kvp
1/11/2011 11:15 PM EST
Do not assume AMD as competitor to Intel.
They have to choose their own way to achieve in their path. Let them to go ahead instead of looking the competitors.
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goafrit
1/12/2011 8:36 AM EST
Why did he leave? What is his plan? Any rumour on acquisition?
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dylan.mcgrath
1/12/2011 2:02 PM EST
Seems clear he was forced out. The story we are getting is that the board wanted to find someone else that they had more faith in for charting the long-term direction of the company. I've been hearing a lot of praise for Meyer, about what he did to lead AMD through some very difficult times. But it seems obvious the board didn't believe he was the best leader for AMD's future. I personally have heard nothing credible about possible acquisition.
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will99878898
1/12/2011 8:42 PM EST
AMD is just as immature as it can be.
bunch of adults acts like 5 years old.
seems never heard about this kind of joke from intel.
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resistion
1/15/2011 8:41 AM EST
It seems the board did not feel AMD under Meyer would tackle smartphones/tablets. But I don't know if they should get into this field now, at this point. Intel's Atom already under pressure from ARM, why get into the same situation? I think board preferred Stotch's suggestion (license ARM). Alternatively, focus on driving the data center, e.g., addressing the memory bandwidth bottleneck that Mapou pointed out.
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