AMD To Cut 500 Global Jobs

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According to Reuters, AMD is cutting 500 jobs. Most of the jobs being eliminated are white-collar jobs and will take place across the company's global operations.

Struggling chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc said it would cut about 500 jobs, or 5 percent of its global workforce, as it looks to rein in costs amid weak demand for its chips used in personal computers and intense competition. AMD said it expects to take a charge of $42 million, with $41 million of that recorded in the just-ended third quarter. AMD said it expected savings of about $58 million in 2016 from the restructuring plan.
 
I wonder if somebody's going to step in and prop them up. Even with the competition from ARM in the mobile space, giving one company total control of the x86 space seems risky.
 
Armisael said:
I wonder if somebody's going to step in and prop them up. Even with the competition from ARM in the mobile space, giving one company total control of the x86 space seems risky.
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One company ALREADY has total control of the x86 space. I really don't see any difference wether AMD survives or not.
 
First of all, while this is not a surprise to me, it does make me feel rather sad. I can honestly say that as a new Nvidia owner, walking away from AMD was not easy. I was very loyal to them since the 5870 and at times, before that throughout the years off and on.

This chain of events started a long time ago.

Throughout the last 4 or 5 years, you remember those drivers that didn't exactly fix your problem, or there was no real performance gains, micro-stuttering, or something was still broke after a year? I do. Those were cracks starting to slowly form beneath AMD's feet.

A misstep here, a misstep there, high turn-over rate. The rats were leaving the sinking ship that AMD had become. And recently, so very very important features left out of new products in 2015. While many couldn't see the significance of missing VRam for greater 4K performance or HDMI 2.0 compatibility, I could. In a normal healthy company, those features would have there no questions ask. It's only recently have we learned AMD had "run out of time" on those features. Not good.

Recently we had AMD cherry picking review sites. All desperate acts of an unhealthy and mislead company

For me personally, I knew in my heart of hearts that the 290x .... /sigh ... had to be my last product. Yes, I still remained an AMD fan. Until yesterday with the reports coming out of credit issues, operating cash issues ( rumors as far as I was concerned ) and the very real possibility of AMD being unable to source HBM2 for their upcoming cards. to today's news of them having to lay off 500 employees, I finally had to admit to myself that I may never ever see an AMD video card again.

I don't think we are to the point of talking about holding a vigil for AMD, but that time may not be too far off.
 
Damn, looks like today anyone with a vital but not directly related to the core business job (e.g. accountant, IT professional, etc...) has to be afraid of outsourcing.
 
Personally I would love to see ATI going independent again, rather than being dragged down by AMD. I missed ATI.

But regardless, this can't be good news. It's hard to see how AMD will be able to bounce back. They need to invest in talents, but they do not have the money for, and as a result, they may continue to lose money, and end up having to lose even more talents. How do you even get out of this cycle.

I feel like it will only be a matter of time before they gets sold to a bigger company.
 
Mean and lean, just in time for Zen to save the company! lol
 
wow, didn't realize that AMD (and Nvidia for that matter) had fewer than 10k employees - for whatever reason I figured they were much larger.
 
I hope that ATI can be saved. It sounds like getting away from Roy Taylor and AMD and finding a new home is about all the real hope we have.

What we don't want is Microsoft buying ATI. Talk about a nightmare for enthusiasts if that happens.
 
fuzzylogik said:
wow, didn't realize that AMD (and Nvidia for that matter) had fewer than 10k employees - for whatever reason I figured they were much larger.
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AMD has has about 10,000 employees since it purchased ATi and sold off its fabs. For example, at the end of 2009, AMD had 10,400 employees according to its 10-K filing. Like Intel, AMD may be using these "layoffs" to get rid of marginal employees, in addition to closing groups or divisions that aren't performing or are otherwise absorbed into other locations. IOW, usual business evaluations.
 
Hopefully they trim off the fat at the top where the issue resides.

BUT LOL, THAT WON'T HAPPEN
 
fuzzylogik said:
wow, didn't realize that AMD (and Nvidia for that matter) had fewer than 10k employees - for whatever reason I figured they were much larger.
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I think it's because these companies do not actually produce any hardware. It takes a large workforce to operate hardware production, from all the various engineers to technicians, as well as the additional IT workforce to support the IT infrastructure for these production facilities.
 
Stoly said:
One company ALREADY has total control of the x86 space. I really don't see any difference wether AMD survives or not.
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It's sad really. They charge a premium for chips too, because they own the market. It's hard to find AMD machines amongst the sea of Intel ones. I bought a quad core FX laptop though and am very pleased with it. Only uses 15w.
 
If I had to guess this would be to lower the burn rate, so they can survive until the Zen launch.
 
If 500 employees is 5% of their workforce they have gotten very tiny already ... although that is an equivalent size to NVidia it is only a tenth of the size of Intel ... it might be harder for them to compete in both the CPU and GPU space if they remain that small
 
Tendencyman said:
AMD should trim the fat at the top.
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I've been saying Lisa Su needs to be tossed out on her ass for a good six months. Defense squad insisted "but she's only been there six months!". Well now she's been there over a year and still no sign of life. At what point is she going to start acting like a CEO?
 
DPI said:
I've been saying Lisa Su needs to be tossed out on her ass for a good six months. Defense squad insisted "but she's only been there six months!". Well now she's been there over a year and still no sign of life. At what point is she going to start acting like a CEO?
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For all we know she is doing great internal work and meeting the goals of the board, and taking home predetermined bonuses based on the company hitting milestones on time.

What kind of acting like a CEO are you expecting?

I can't help but think that the board has a better insight into her performance than anyone on these forums...
 
Zarathustra[H];1041893303 said:
For all we know she is doing great internal work and meeting the goals of the board, and taking home predetermined bonuses based on the company hitting milestones on time.

What kind of acting like a CEO are you expecting?

I can't help but think that the board has a better insight into her performance than anyone on these forums...
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Exactly, and even a CEO isn't a miracle worker ... if anyone is expecting her, or any CEO, to bring back that brief period where AMD took supremacy from Intel with their Athlon chips that is highly unlikely ... Intel had been sitting on their laurels back then and was pursuing the tail end of a dying technology (they just hadn't realized it yet) and Intel underestimated the potential of the Nexgen merger which allowed AMD to leapfrog Intel finally ... the ATI portion of the business is still doing reasonably well but they need to do a better job with marketing to convert more folks from team green
 
let me guess, all in R&D and driver development

none in advertising or middle management
 
Zarathustra[H];1041893303 said:
I can't help but think that the board has a better insight into her performance than anyone on these forums...
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Taking into account the dismal state of AMD's situation, a case could be made that AMD's board is not very competent.
 
looks like we may have to lay off Andre

pic.jpg
 
PRIME1 said:
They just gave their execs a bunch of bonuses. High fives all around for firing people.
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What bonuses? The executive team got AMD stock as a retention incentive not too long ago, but that won't be worth much if the company dies.
 
kbrickley said:
Exactly, and even a CEO isn't a miracle worker ... if anyone is expecting her, or any CEO, to bring back that brief period where AMD took supremacy from Intel with their Athlon chips that is highly unlikely ... Intel had been sitting on their laurels back then and was pursuing the tail end of a dying technology (they just hadn't realized it yet) and Intel underestimated the potential of the Nexgen merger which allowed AMD to leapfrog Intel finally ... the ATI portion of the business is still doing reasonably well but they need to do a better job with marketing to convert more folks from team green
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As I see it, in an industry with multi year R&D projects, you can't turn around a company in one year.

Most of what is going on today, was started well before she joined the company, and you have to be weary of making too many waves (canceling & starting projects, reorganizing, etc) as the lack of stability hurts the performance of a company and delays projects.

If anything she was probably instrumental in prioritizing Zen over K12, which seems like it was a reasonable decision.

AMD is going to be difficult to turn around at all. Returning to a position of being neck-at-neck with Intel is probably never going to happen, unless we have another Intel blunder like with Netburst. The best they can hope for if Zen meets all goals is taking up a strong second place, while being viable as an option, which they aren't today, all while being able to save their GPU business after the disappointing launch of Fury.

We will see if she succeeds, but what AMD needs right now is stability, in order to bring Zen across the finish line.
 
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