Rory Read - AMD Financial Analyst Day

Rory Read, AMD's new president and CEO got on stage this morning and put a lot of emphasis on execution. He made no bones about it that AMD could execute better. Given the legacy of Bulldozer, execution is something that is in obvious need of focus, and Rory fully understands this. Rory went on about strategy and how AMD needed to react to market. Consumerization, Cloud, and Covergence were three focal points of his strategy. Tablet and appliance products, use of cloud functions to enable new business models, and connectivity among all those devices used. Windows 8 running ARM is not being discounted either, but information was cloudy about how that was important to AMD. Trinity APUs, which will be released in the coming months, already has more design wins than AMD saw with Brazos, which was a tremendous seller for AMD.

Rory sees AMD as being a huge player in entry and low end systems while taking a big part of the low power market as well. It seemed as though continuing trying to compete with Intel on the high end was not the end game. He referred to competition with Intel as an "unhealthy duopoly."

"Focus and execution to build a bedrock of trust with its cusomters is of the utmost importance."

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So what is next for AMD? AMD is going to "double down" on the Client and Mobility space. Thin and light, building on the APUs. Then AMD will attack on the traditional server space with a move to the cloud server space. AMD also needs to look to emerging markets where of course low cost, low power, entry level products are the strongest. APU and its progress is key for AMD.

"AMD is primed to capture the inflection point." "AMD is differentiation through Consumerization, Cloud, and Convergence." "AMD will lead by marrying market needs with innovating technology." "AMD is shaping its future with sustained execution and agility"

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Rory was extremely passionate and charismatic and eager throughout his delivery. His monologue certainly made me think that he was not just passing out Koolaid, but truly thinks he can impact AMD in a positive way. Surely there are some questions about how AMD intends to compete in the server and high end desktop space moving forward. APU and discrete GPU are being banked on to pay the bills to move forward for sure.

IMO AMD has a great product with their APUs. If they focused on mobile devices whether it be ULP x86 SoC or merg their APU with ARM architecture that would be awesome. If they created something that could blow Tegra or Exynos SoC out of the water they could make a killing in the mobile market. They have something with their APUs now they just need to do something with it

He lost me at the 3 C's (Consumerization, Cloud, and Convergence)... If that's NOT Koolaid, I don't know what it.....

Been watching and it's interesting though still typical jargon bullshit. Some interesting points...



Apparently by 2014 they'll actually go through with the GPU computing, or at least the emphasis on GPU computing that's been taking the HPC world by storm.

Their talks are completely devoid anything for enthusiast high end desktop. Obviously this isn't surprising considering how far Intel are ahead, but AMD seems to have loosened its grip on x86 and is willing to work with SoCs and embedded devices, customized architectures with third-party IP. Basically, I'd expect lots of tiny AMD chips in nearly anything that powers a monitor, including videogame consoles. People already hate Nvidia because they're a PITA to work with but with an x86 license and now willing to deviate from "only x86 architecture", AMD should be quite deadly.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5494/amd-is-open-to-integrating-3rd-party-ip-in-future-socs
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5492/amds-rory-read-outlines-amds-future-strategy

Then there's this...


I think AMD has officially quit giving a shit as far as what Intel is doing. "Compensate for process technology lag" meaning they won't match them with fab process, but will have to do so with R&D and flexibility. I think Intel is too stubborn to let go of x86, so if AMD can produce something of a hybrid Intel , despite having the best fabs on the planet, will have many issues.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...rom-one-core-to-many-and-why-were-still-stuck

And it looks as if AMD has quit its endeavor on offering more cores and instead going for the optimization approach, which is likely to be necessary when it comes to the future of computing.

So it looks like they woke up. Now let's wait and see just what and when they can deliver

live blog

pelo said:

And it looks as if AMD has quit its endeavor on offering more cores and instead going for the optimization approach, which is likely to be necessary when it comes to the future of computing.

So it looks like they woke up. Now let's wait and see just what and when they can deliver

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Pretty sure I spelled that out for you.

Rory sees AMD as being a huge player in entry and low end systems while taking a big part of the low power market as well. It seemed as though continuing trying to compete with Intel on the high end was not the end game. He referred to competition with Intel as an "unhealthy duopoly."

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Desktop processors have only been discussed this morning as a subset of the server part, and otherwise desktop has not been mentioned.

AMD moved mountains their x86-64 technology making developers finally code in 64-bit for consumer-level software. Hopefully they'll move us beyond x86 with another hybrid that'll force Intel off the x86 bullshit once and for all.

Move mountains WITH their x86-64 technology**

Not sure how I left that word out. Probably thinking faster than I type.

TR thinks AMD is hinting at ARM offerings some time in the future with the "ambidextrous" comments by top execs. Not surprising, but I wonder if AMD just started a project. It took Nvidia 2 years IIRC to launch Tegra, and that was with an army of engineers.

Oh yes. AMD is getting prepared to go x86 or ARM.

That is not a hint. That is a fact.

Thanks for posting this. It's too bad to see further confirmation that AMD is winding down its "duopoly" with Intel in terms of high-end consumer CPUs, but of course it isn't surprising.

AMD out of the high-end desktop CPUs game, does that mean AMD CPUs are not considered [H]ard enough?

Imagine future pricing on high end desktop parts.

malih said:

AMD out of the high-end desktop CPUs game, does that mean AMD CPUs are not considered [H]ard enough?

Imagine future pricing on high end desktop parts.

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Yeah... that's all i'm thinking.

Maybe the gov will just split up Intel

If you don't game, it's hard to find a reason to use a desktop right now.

I know, I build a decent rig for gaming (per my country's standards), but life got in the way and it's turned off for at least a month. The laptop gets used every day, and I carry it around almost everywhere.

It's sad for Desktop lovers - I like to have a Desktop, but I can see why they're being replaced by most people - but it's a very smart move for AMD. Even in my country (Brazil) more and more people are willing to pay a premium for mobility. Desktops are starting to get used only in office settings... people have laptops, cellphones (smartphones are BOOMING here) and the ones who have more cash get a tablet too. But not a desktop.

Also, seeing more and more people carrying around AMD Vision powered notebooks/netbooks tells me they're getting it right. Not too long ago all I saw was Intel.

I hope he keeps the same commitment for the AMD/[H] GamExperience events in Dallas.

cdr_74_premium said:

If you don't game, it's hard to find a reason to use a desktop right now.

I know, I build a decent rig for gaming (per my country's standards), but life got in the way and it's turned off for at least a month. The laptop gets used every day, and I carry it around almost everywhere.

It's sad for Desktop lovers - I like to have a Desktop, but I can see why they're being replaced by most people - but it's a very smart move for AMD. Even in my country (Brazil) more and more people are willing to pay a premium for mobility. Desktops are starting to get used only in office settings... people have laptops, cellphones (smartphones are BOOMING here) and the ones who have more cash get a tablet too. But not a desktop.

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I have to disagree with you at least partially. I agree that smartphones are booming, but I see my smartphone replacing my laptop a LOT sooner than I see any laptop replacing my desktop, regardless of whether I game or not.

I have a nice laptop that is fast and gets 7 hrs of battery life. It has a great screen and a DVD drive, too, as well as the best touchpad I've ever used on any laptop. It's wonderful and all, but it will never replace my desktop in the foreseeable future.

My desktop runs dual monitors and a lot of powerful hardware inside, and I use it for much more than gaming. With bluray burners at pretty reasonable prices nowadays it makes a great long term storage medium for people's large video and photo archives. Editing, organizing, and archiving all that stuff is a much more pleasant task on a large desktop monitor with a full-size keyboard and mouse. Think the average user would disagree with me? Talk to my mother, my dad, my wife, my sister, my brother, and a lot of other people I use. They will ALL say that there are a lot of things they'd much rather do on their desktop. They all own laptops, too. Laptops are fine when you need them, but they just aren't as comfortable and capable for many tasks. And if you buy a desktop replacement laptop with a nice large screen and keyboard, you're going to be lugging around a fairly hefty item.