AMD Not Competing with Intel Anymore, Goes Mobile

I

IceBrewedBeer

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 2, 2007
Messages
145
Didn't know where to put this since I can't post in the news forum>

In a move than could very well be interpreted as exchanging one problem for another, Advanced Micro Devices has decided to stop focusing so much on the PC business and get its act closer together on the mobile front.

The Bulldozer disaster, as it is known in some circles, must have persuaded AMD's leadership that the PC side of their business wasn't flying very well and far anymore.

Though everyone was expecting much from 8-core processors, the performance was, in the end, well lower than some of AMD's own previous-generation chips.

Whether because of this or something else, it was reported that Advanced Micro Devices has chosen to distance itself from its competition with Intel.

That is to say, it will focus less on processors for PCs and pay more attention to the mobile market.

As such, it will probably start to customize its Fusion platform in such a way as to create tablet and smartphone chips.

"We're at an inflection point," said AMD spokesman Mike Silverman, according to a Mercury News report. "We will all need to let go of the old 'AMD versus Intel' mindset, because it won't be about that anymore."

If anything, 2011, with more than half a year of lacking an actual CEO, was a clear symptom that Advanced Micro Devices had to do something, and soon.

The company has a new leader now and, sure enough, the man took some fairly drastic measures, and that includes more than this latest change in direction, as well as a branded RAM project.

The workforce also suffered, especially the PR and marketing departments AMD axed large portions of each as part of its plan to cut total worldwide employee count by 10%).

The complicated thing about the focus on mobile is that ARM already has that well enough in hand, and NVIDIA just launched the Kal-El too. AMD may just be exchanging one headache for another with this.
Click to expand...

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Not-Competing-With-Intel-Anymore-Goes-Mobile-237103.shtml
 
WTF, they thing Intel will not smash them in mobile with their 22nm.....get ready processors will cost a lot of $$$ without AMD in the game.
 
They will still make CPUs for PC, but not high end. The market is changing. How many people own PCs? How many now use smart phones and tablets more and more over desktops or laptops. The world is on the move, and more and more pressure for more production. And why be tied to a desk or lug around a laptop, when a tablet can FO most things on the go as good as a laptop, with less weight, size, and better battety life.
 
Since AMD can not do what it did so well at one time, what makes them think they can do something else well that they can't do well to start with? I guess they figure that tablets are taking off and no matter how well they do there is a larger market that will buy there products no matter how bad they are, I guess it's time to go with intel and Not AMD video cards. So So long AMD? Come on now guys that is not how you became the leader at one time, Take command Hire some people form overseas if you have to since we have a small labor pool right now.
 
MarkedOne said:
WTF, they thing Intel will not smash them in mobile with their 22nm.....get ready processors will cost a lot of $$$ without AMD in the game.
Click to expand...

Not so fast. AMD will still be in the desktop CPU business; it's just that when the current-generation CPUs are due for replacement it will not offer such an extensive range of models for generations to come. Right now, it has far too many models of desktop CPUs in current production and on the market.

And as far as price increases, that will not happen for the foreseeable future unless something goes terribly wrong at one of Intel's main fabs. It's just that without much competition from AMD, Intel will likely keep existing CPUs in production for significantly longer than what had been the practice while keeping prices flat over that time span.
 
E4g1e said:
Not so fast. AMD will still be in the desktop CPU business; it's just that when the current-generation CPUs are due for replacement it will not offer such an extensive range of models for generations to come. Right now, it has far too many models of desktop CPUs in current production and on the market.

And as far as price increases, that will not happen for the foreseeable future unless something goes terribly wrong at one of Intel's main fabs. It's just that without much competition from AMD, Intel will likely keep existing CPUs in production for significantly longer than what had been the practice while keeping prices relatively flat over that time span.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Intel knows that they need volume and margin to sell processors at a profit. If they increase their prices then they won't move as much volume. I think they've found nearly the perfect balance between volume and margin. AMD may change the dynamic of the market with this type of announcement but any significant impact to the market won't happen for several years if true. I don't even know if this means the market will stagnate processor wise. They'll just focus on mobile devices which is where everything is going anyway. Intel may be forced to shift their efforts there and scale designs up with more cores and features in desktop and server markets.

In short, I don't think this will change anything in the near future. I just don't think AMD has the resources to compete well on two fronts. (Mobile and desktop.) So they are practically abandoning the market they are having the harder time with. Even then I believe Bulldozer and it's refreshes will be available for some time as budget alternatives to whatever Intel has got. We will see what happens in the next three or four years, but until then I doubt anything will change.
 
Stupid_Newbie said:
They will still make CPUs for PC, but not high end. The market is changing. How many people own PCs? How many now use smart phones and tablets more and more over desktops or laptops. The world is on the move, and more and more pressure for more production. And why be tied to a desk or lug around a laptop, when a tablet can FO most things on the go as good as a laptop, with less weight, size, and better battety life.
Click to expand...

While the smart-phone and tablet market are growing at an amazing rate, I have yet to hear of anyone replacing their desktop or laptop with a phone/tablet. If anything, people are increasingly using smart phones and tablets as SUPPLEMENTS to their existing computers. Smartphones have the very glaring limitations of screen size and battery life. Even the latest smart phones only offer 4.3'' touchscreens, which is fine for an email or two or some angry birds, but sure as hell won't let you do more advanced tasks such as say, photoshop, typing up documents, gaming, watching Hi-Def videos, etc. Plus, there is not ONE smartphone on the market that can handle intensive usage such a videos and wifi for more than 4 hours without its battery dying.

Tablets have picked up some of the slack on that front, but 90% of the things that most heavy computer users do on a computer still require a mouse and keyboard. At most, tablets would have taken over the market for the most entry level of computers, such as net books, all in ones, etc. However, on the high end, they still lack the screen size, keyboard, mouse, and overall computational power of their traditional counterparts.

Personally, I have a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone, and I use all of them regularly on a daily basis. The smartphone for checking my email on the go (bus, on line to get lunch/coffee, etc), the tablet for reading ebooks / quick email/document drafting (reading on the subway, typing up a quick work email at a clients office, etc), the laptop for most at work applications (powerpoints, drafting reports/emails, heavy email in/out), and the desktop at home for gaming, surfing, and watching videos.

Honestly, I don't think the traditional computer will die out until "small form factor" technology matures a lot more, and in particular, until batteries become smaller and longer lasting.

AMD will probably continue to manufacture entry and mid level affordable processors for casual users, and just withdraw from the "high end" market, AKA over $200, leaving that to Intel. Maybe they'll be able to bring the same formula to mobile processors, producing ones that may not perform as well as their competitors, but being much more affordable for simple smartphones/tablets.
 
The convergence of computing devices will happen when there is a central core fast enough to do computation, coupled with a variety of interface devices. So e.g. you could have a wearable computer, but would interact with it using your big screen tv, virtual projected keyboard, a real docking station etc. These interfaces would be interchangeable between users too, a little bit like the dumb Sun terminals where each workers profile would migrate. This is already happening with tablets like the Transformer which have a dock to turn them into a laptop/netbook. Add sufficiently powerful and miniaturized cpu's, and cloud storage, and your have ubiquitous computing with no drawbacks.

Of course this is at least 5 years away before it even becomes available, never mind widely deployed.
 
Steve said:
We posted on that 10 days ago.

And, as Dan said, this won't change anything in the near future. I I remember correctly, we talked about this back when AMD's CEO got the boot. The rumor back then was that the board was unhappy with headway it was(n't) making in the emerging mobile market. etc. etc.

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2011/11/21/amd_struggling_to_reinvent_itself
Click to expand...

Any type of announcement that AMD makes which can remotely be interpreted as negative sends up the red flags and generates comments like; "OMG Intel teh monopoly we'll all pay $1,000 for Celerons!" As long as sub-$1,000 PC's (hell sub-$600) rule the retail shelves we won't see the average processor price change from what it is now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top