Comments on: Dirk Meyer, the man to watch at AMD

Company's president is being groomed to succeed CEO Hector Ruiz. But first he must prove that last year's engineering snafus were an aberration.

[ColdMast]

softer sales-and-marketing touch?

The world unfortunately revolves around sales and marketing types, they are usually promoted to the highest level of incompetence.

[ColdMast]

Peter Principle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peter_Principle

[processeon]

A different perspective

Well as far sales and marketing folks being CEOs I think that it's a matter of old school business. Were you have the original standard business types that have been around for hundreds to thousands of years and it's simply a case of that is how it has been. Although perhaps technology has been around with them in one form or another those folks were looked upon as skilled labor not business types. It is the second have of the twentieth century that you have that slowly begin to change.

You have an arrogance among the old school types and thus their common mis perception that soft/people skills can't be taught but hard or technical skills can and it is these soft skills that matter. Quite the reverse is typically true. You can always put the people skilled folks in positions were they matter other then CEO. However you either have an aptitude for math and other High Tech skills or you don't. Which brings to mind the story about throwing manure against the side of a barn and making it stick it's not a hard skill to learn.

The bottom line is that AMD was growing hand over fist while Intel was tripping over it's own feet from 1999 to about 2006. AMD had gained enormous market share. For what ever reason the powers that be at AMD decided to emulate Intel and sit on their hands. Technology upgrades slowed to a snails pace over the years and once Intel stopped floundering with gimmicks and bullying they got serious and reintroduced technology to their products and turned it around. AMD continued to sit on their hands until the loss of market share finally woke somebody up who took notice. Unfortunately it was one of the old school types and instead of getting off their backside and going full speed ahead with technology they simply pulled a play from the old school book and purchased ATI which began a very serious downward spiral and has nearly cast them into financial ruin.

Sales and marketing folks can certainly sell a lousy product they can even sell a nonexistent product as well. That doesn't make them good CEOs nor better suited for that position then the folks who dream up real products and the processes that are needed to make them. Perhaps it's time for the old guard to step aside and let somebody with a brain take charge for a change.

[eightwings]

Bad Strategy

Ruiz is doing a fine job as a CEO, in my opinion. It's a mistake to replace Ruiz with Meyer. Meyer used to work for Intel, so he thinks like Intel. This is the last think AMD needs, someone who can't see beyond Intel's playground. AMD needs to find a tech visionary who is willing to stop playing Intel's game and forge a new market. Now that the industry is beginning to take its first painful steps away from sequential computing toward massive parallelism, AMD has the chance of a lifetime to redefine the multicore CPU market and leave Intel holding an empty bag. AMD must re-evaluate the current state of the art in parallel computing and determine what is wrong with it. And there is a lot that is wrong with it (see link below). As soon as they can identify the real nature of the problem, they can formulate a solution that will corner the market. I'm sure Meyer is an excellent engineer but I doubt very much that he has the sort of vision that will catapult AMD into a leadership position in this cut-throat market.

The Age of Crappy Concurrency: Erlang, Tilera, AMD, IBM, Freescale, etc...
http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/2007/09/age-of-crappy-concurrency-erlang-tilera.html

[processeon]

Hmmmmm

The problem is that they "are" playing Intel's old game of sitting on technology. Intel had a near total monopoly when it did that and it eventually lead to AMD getting with in a stones throw of being on an equal footing with Intel's share of the CPU market.

AMD "was" past tense an innovator of current technology and with the Athlon the new. They stayed the course with DDR and quickly introduced new and improved technology into their products such as ATA well before Intel and often going beyond Intel. That is what got them the to point of having Intel well with in their sights. Then along can Hector Ruiz and he introduced the old Intel sit on your hands and wait routine. Don't know much about Dirk Meyers but they definitely need someone who can both straighten out their current mess and start introducing a steady stream of new innovative technology again. More to the point with out making another acquisition nor selling FABs. Which of course the latter is the old school mentality.

The old school boys sit on a product until the market for it dies and then simply buys and sells companies, assists and stocks. They don't have the brain God gave a gnat when it comes to growing a business into an icon.

[hicamproject]

Time to buy AMD? AMD a bargain stock?

Dirk Meyer was *the man* personally responsible for the Athlon coming out and saving AMD ass in 2003. He's known to be a difficult guy to work with, but so is Steve Jobs. What I do know about him, is that he's a great engineer and surely the right person to make the AMD/ATI merger work in the *long term*. If your willing to go long, bet on Captain Dirk.

Considering that AMD is at a 5 year low, it seems that it is a good time to buy AMD. Here's a detailed analysis that I've read, by someone who has been buying AMD during this downturn.

http://amdinvestor.com/2007/12/27/what-do-you-think-amd-is-worth-an-amd-stock-analysis/

Yes it's true that AMD has had a bad year, and will have another bad year to come, but for those willing to hold, it could be profitable?