AMD Optimizes Cost Structure to Enhance Competitiveness and Accelerate Growth

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AMD today announced a restructuring plan and implementation of operational efficiency initiatives designed to strengthen the company's competitive positioning. AMD expects that these combined actions will create a more competitive cost structure and rebalance the company's global workforce skillsets, helping AMD to continue delivering industry-leading products while improving productivity, reducing time-to-market and better aligning with key industry trends that are expected to drive growth.
 
Do these plans involve making decent competitive products?

The "key industry trends that are expected to drive groth" bit sounds like they are going to be targeting the low low end tablet fad market more than anything... Hopefully the future isn't shitty fusion.
 
Laying off workers because fewer people are buying their products = Optimizing Cost Structure to Enhance Competitiveness and Accelerate Growth?

Corporate bullsh*t.
 
That is some seriously twisted corporate-speak. They are firing 10% of their employees. I mean, they are "rebalancing the company's global workforce skillsets..." See, they had an overabundance of certain skillsets available so they needed to eliminate those positions to make it more "balanced." Yes, yes this was what has been holding AMD back.
 
Stone Cold said:
Laying off workers because fewer people are buying their products = Optimizing Cost Structure to Enhance Competitiveness and Accelerate Growth?

Corporate bullsh*t.
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This isn't corporate bullshit. This is a case of the "old management royally fucked up and we need to fix the god damned company."
 
Wow...

Manager to employee : Sorry, to have to lay you off, here are your papers. You've been optimized.


GREAT idea... just wow...
 
Yakk said:
Wow...

Manager to employee : Sorry, to have to lay you off, here are your papers. You've been optimized.


GREAT idea... just wow...
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Correction: "...here are your papers, we've been optimized"
 
I guess you could say their jobs got Bulldozed.
 
Azhar said:
Correction: "...here are your papers, we've been optimized"
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I stand corrected.

Next day...

Executive to Manager : here are your papers, we've been optimized

-
 
Stone Cold said:
Laying off workers because fewer people are buying their products = Optimizing Cost Structure to Enhance Competitiveness and Accelerate Growth?

Corporate bullsh*t.
Click to expand...

Exactly. That was the worst spin for cutting employees I've heard in a long time. AMD is being prepped for sale.
 
PRIME1 said:
Exactly. That was the worst spin for cutting employees I've heard in a long time. AMD is being prepped for sale.
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AMD loses it's x86 license if it is sold, and they already sold their ARM division.

AMD has nowhere to go, BUT try to restructure.
 
Everybody 's been commenting on how amd as less budget then intel. If the management didn't do anything after BD's lackluster performance i'd be extremely worried bout amd future. Now that the bulldozer's cleared the ground for some stronger foundation... :p their future looks brighter !
 
Yakk said:
AMD loses it's x86 license if it is sold, and they already sold their ARM division.
.
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I don't know if that's exactly true anymore. When Intel settled their lawsuit I think the x86 problem changed, because there were rumors of people buying VIA (which has a license).

Not to mention that AMD does hold it's own patents such as x86-64.
 
MaZa said:
Thats incredibly cruel thing to say... But still hilarious cuz its so true.
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I'm sure that's nothing next to the piledriving they'll take next year. Looks like their days of making phenominal chips are over.
 
Jospeh said:
You are acting like the top 1% of AMD didn't get laid off.
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The top "1%" doesn't care, thanks to their generous severance packages. The other "99%" have families and bills to pay for like the rest of us.
 
Azhar said:
The top "1%" doesn't care, thanks to their generous severance packages. The other "99%" have families and bills to pay for like the rest of us.
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Severance packages at all levels of employment are negotiable.

The fact some people may not negotiate one just because the potential employer says no, unfortunately falls on their own shoulders. Nothing stops people in desperate need of employment (and yes there are far too many) to pay bills to continue searching for employment that have severance pay.
 
It is what it is. People shouldn't act shocked or surprised any more in this economy.

Honestly, it looks like they realize their approach is crap, Bulldozer flopped, and now they need to try something drastic to get back in the game, and that probably means spending money they don't have right now, hence laying off people and trying to get up the capital to buy whatever is necessary to get back a competitive advantage and do things different, which is going to cost money because it probably means a major course correction, as well as trying to hire some very good engineers away from intel and other companies.

All in all, its not surprising, and as much as it sucks for those who lost their jobs, as a business its the right first move for AMD, and no one will care if in 2 years from now they put out a processor that blows intel out of the water - truth is truth.

On the flip side, if they make more missteps and bomb out, people are not going to forget this ever. AMD needs to succeed, or else they will never live this down. But compete again seriously with intel and all will not only be forgiven, but either forgotten or rationalized.

Such is how things work...
 
DeathPrincess said:
Do these plans involve making decent competitive products?

The "key industry trends that are expected to drive groth" bit sounds like they are going to be targeting the low low end tablet fad market more than anything... Hopefully the future isn't shitty fusion.
Click to expand...

I had that impression too that they may be shifting focus towards mobile segment

The company expects to reinvest a significant portion of the savings to fund initiatives designed to accelerate AMD's strategies for lower power, emerging markets, and the cloud.
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Low power hardware, in an emerging market, certainly sounds like handheld devices market to me.
 
Azhar said:
The top "1%" doesn't care, thanks to their generous severance packages. The other "99%" have families and bills to pay for like the rest of us.
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That's a bit of a contradiction. If upper management feels that their decisions, good or bad, wont come back and bite them in the ass because of their cushy severance packages, then why not run the company straight into the ground? Better yet, why any decisions at all? Hm.. maybe they actually want to keep their job? The best way to do that is to make good decisions.

So yes, they must care. Layoffs of this magnitude are incredibly damaging in the short-run (and potentially the long-run too, if they fail to recover); the impact on employee morale, distress, survivors guilt, etc. increases employee absenteeism and generally reduces efficiency.
 
didn't they lay off their marketing department? If that's all it was I would have to agree they made the right decision.
 
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