[BrynS]

Hexus is reporting that Henri Richard has resigned:

Originally Posted by Hexus

Our exclusive revelation that AMD's marketing leader - and Hector Ruiz's right-hand man - is to leave comes soon after the departure from AMD of former ATI CEO Dave Orton.

At the time that it purchased ATi, AMD had over $2bn in the bank and was (on paper at least) almost three times bigger than graphics giant - which had been regularly banging in quarterly results in the region of $650M.

Unfortunately, since the merger, AMD has struggled to get past $1.3Bn - strongly indicating that ATI is, quite possibly, now delivering half of AMD's revenue.
[...]

[Geo]

That's actually OT, since Richard is not ex-ATI.

Even so,

I'm more shocked by that than if Hector and Dirk were forced to resign by the board. My impression has been that Richard is really the guy that gets stuff done around there.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by Geo

My impression has been that Richard is really the guy that gets stuff done around there.

Well his job being to "gets stuff done around there" and the fact that they really haven't gotten much done lately well might go a long way to explaining his "retirement".

[Geo]

Actually, "scapegoat" was the phrase that came to mind. YMMV. But if you're saying that everything will be bright and rosy now that he's gone, well glad to hear it.

[B3D News]

HEXUS are reporting that Henri Richard, Executive VP and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, is to leave AMD on September 8th

Read the full news item

[vertex_shader]

Originally Posted by BrynS

Hexus is reporting that Henri Richard has resigned:

Great, looks like cleanup is running in the good way.

[BrynS]

It'll be interesting to see how this is spun by AMD, e.g. 'amicable move', 'Henri's pursuiing his own interests/wants to spend more time with the family/etc' or whether it'll be more telling in its ambiquity/lack of detail or praise.

The timing of Orton's resignation and now Richard's could suggest that they want to appease those calling for change at the highest level, while not appearing panicked by changing a number of high-profile appointments within a very short space of time or all at once.

[Geeforcer]

Does it mean they are going to start doing soft launches from now on?

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by BrynS

The timing of Orton's resignation and now Richard's could suggest that they want to appease those calling for change at the highest level, while not appearing panicked by changing a number of high-profile appointments within a very short space of time or all at once.

I don't think Orton & Richard's resignation are connected at all.

Didn't you notice the timing of Orton's resignation? One year almost to the day of AMD's take over of ATi...

I think Orton's resignation was planned/agreed on in a year as part of the buy-out plan. I think Richard's "resignation" could be for some of the batshit crazy statements he's been making.

[Geeforcer]

I am with Digi... Henri's dabbling in PR since the merger has been either an embarrassing disaster or disastrous embarrassment. He must count his lucky stars that the company didn't get hit with multiple class action suits because of him.

[BrynS]

Yeah, I'd go along with the thought that Orton could have potentially specified only staying on for 12 months or so as a small proviso for the deal last year and can appreciate the stated reasoning (logistics, impact on family, etc) for his resignation.

I think that it may link in with the timing of Richard's resignation only in that as much as AMD probably would have wanted to avoid any high-level resignations over the past six months, as their bottom line and stated execution targets have increasingly been battered, the pressure for a senior scalp goes up -- if Orton's decision was made last year it may have made the timing of another senior resignation awkward less they risk a 2-for-1 discharge which could appear worse.

Perhaps Richard has caused too much friction of late or actually just wants to move on; if so, bad timing I'd say -- wouldn't it be better to leave just after the Barcelona launch, not just before it?

[Geo]

Alternate theory: If you're going to try for a coup, then your prepartory moves will include trying to strip away the Leader's supporters in key positions ahead of time. Isolate him first.

[INKster]

Originally Posted by Geo

Alternate theory: If you're going to try for a coup, then your prepartory moves will include trying to strip away the Leader's supporters in key positions ahead of time. Isolate him first.

Are you hinting at a straight take-over by an "outside force" ?
Or is it a classic inside job ?

[Voltron]

According to the Wall Street Journal he is leaving to take another job. That's a pretty good indication he wasn't forced out. And considering AMD's problems are cross-functional, if the board was looking for blood and had much sense they would probably look at the man at the helm. Not necessarily deploring Ruiz, just saying that would be a logical starting point if the board felt the company was being mismanaged.

[GMâ„¢]

AMD don't seem to be worried about losing quite a lot of talented people. Are Intel still hiring for the GFX team? They could get some really talented people at the moment and I should imagine they need them.

[Geo]

What would you expect to happen? A statement from Richard blasting internal enemies, etc? C'mon, that's not the way the game is played at that level.

Boards don't switch all at once, usually. At this point I think there's a very good chance that Hector will be gone by the end of the year, and either the CFO or Meyer will be acting head of the company (tho of course Meyer might go at the same time). If you asked me when this would be most likely to happen, I'd say right around 3Q results time.

Unless the Barcelona launch and reception is much stronger than the sense I'm getting from most people who follow this stuff.

[cadaveca]

I'm with you too, geo, but not about Meyer.



Nothing to do with his work ethic, he just seems a bit soft for executive positioning. I like him better as engineer...

[INKster]

[H] has the word -literally - on the internal memo:

Richard to Leave AMD Confirmed

TO: All Employees

FROM: Hector Ruiz, AMD Chairman and CEO - Dirk Meyer, AMD President and COO

SUBJECT: Henri Richard

We are sad to announce that Henri Richard has made the decision to leave AMD.

When Henri joined AMD in 2002, his primary mission was to establish a world-class global Sales and Marketing organization. It is safe to say that he has accomplished that mission, and he is now ready for a new challenge in his career. While we will certainly miss him, it’s a measure of his success that the organization he leaves behind is fully poised to succeed and capable of maintaining and building the momentum that we have built.

In the last five years, we have increased exponentially our global account footprint, acquiring customers of every caliber, including the top PC and server OEMs around the world. In fact, from Toshiba and Acer to Lenovo, Dell, Sun and HP, we have become a critical strategic partner to our customers and a key component of enterprise solutions and consumer products worldwide.

Commensurate with this growth in our business, and the strength of our corporate and product brands, we have a Sales and Marketing organization that can support and continue to grow our strategic importance to our customers. Nevertheless, we know this was a difficult decision for Henri, especially as we are poised to enjoy the successes of our acquisition of ATI, our upcoming quad-core Barcelona product and our strong product and technology roadmaps.

Henri’s official departure date is still pending, and we will communicate a leadership plan shortly.

Look for a Q&A with Henri to appear on AMD Online in the next day or two. Henri will discuss AMD’s accomplishments over the last five years, and our phenomenal opportunities moving forward.

Please join us in thanking Henri for his leadership and wishing him well in his post-AMD career.

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?new...VzaWFzdCwsLDE=

[Geo]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I'm with you too, geo, but not about Meyer.



Nothing to do with his work ethic, he just seems a bit soft for executive positioning. I like him better as engineer...

Rivet would be my favorite as well, at least "interim". Flinty-eyed financial sensibility, but still knows the business well. Then he makes the tough decisions and a new CEO gets to be the white knight.

[BrynS]

AMD Press Release

Originally Posted by AMD

[...]
“After 20 years in the PC industry – and five of the most professionally rewarding years here at AMD – I have decided to make a move to a different business segment,� Mr. Richard said. “I am leaving AMD at a time when the company is in position to break the monopoly that plagues this industry. I am immensely proud of my contribution to AMD, and in particular, of the strong team I leave behind.�
[...]

[Geeforcer]

Originally Posted by BrynS

Perhaps Richard has caused too much friction of late or actually just wants to move on; if so, bad timing I'd say -- wouldn't it be better to leave just after the Barcelona launch, not just before it?

That would depend quite a bit on how the aforementioned launch will go...

[Silent_Buddha]

Also depends on if the other company made him an offer he just couldn't refuse. If he's leaving for another job, obviously the barcelona launch will have zero impact on the current job he's leaving for.

Of course, if he's taking a pay and power cut in the move to the new job, that might be an indication he had little faith in Barcelona.

Until we have more details on what his new job entails as well as the benefits he'll enjoy there's it's hard to say if the motivation was just looking for a new challenge, better pay, a hostile work envirionment (stockholders looking for a scapegoat), internal power plays, or what have you.

On that note, has anyone heard any rumors about where he is headed? The memo's mentioned a move into a different field, so I'm guessing CPU and graphics are out. So no Nvidia or Intel.

Regards,
SB

[wingless]

Hindsight is always 20/20....

AMD and ATI should have waited to get their next generation chips out BEFORE merging at such a critical time in their product cycles. Thats an error on the part of AMD/ATI's operations management plain and simple. The health of the R600 and Barcelona chips would have most likely been better due to lesser fabrication process complications on the CPU and GPU sides of things. Also ATI probably would have been a billion dollars cheaper if they had launched the R600 as poorly as they did (its doing pretty damn good now with the new drivers though).

Let me ask all of you a question about brand loyalty. Why did Intel manage to stay afloat just fine being second to AMD for nearly 4 WHOLE YEARS with tons of people buying worthless Pentium 4's/D's when AMD can barely make it a year without the press and resulting public opinion destroying them for being 6 months late? Why is that? What made all these AMD users and fans jump ship for Intel? Personally I do believe AMD has a part that will compete with PENRYN clock for clock (in non SSE4+ applications) easily and will be a pretty decent chip to have in your box with the upcoming new chipsets and socket types. AMD fans need to keep faith in a company that didn't take FOUR whole years to get a worthy competitor to the market after the competition outran them.

[Geeforcer]

Originally Posted by wingless

Let me ask all of you a question about brand loyalty. Why did Intel manage to stay afloat just fine being second to AMD for nearly 4 WHOLE YEARS with tons of people buying worthless Pentium 4's/D's when AMD can barely make it a year without the press and resulting public opinion destroying them for being 6 months late?

Let's look at what actually happed during the pre-Core part of those four years: Intel's profits plummeted to the point it was barely avoid quarterly losses while AMD saw record profits and revenues, with stock price hitting $42. The whole "woe-is-AMD" is not necessary: while they were out executing Intel, they were doing just fine.

[3dilettante]

Originally Posted by wingless

Hindsight is always 20/20....

AMD and ATI should have waited to get their next generation chips out BEFORE merging at such a critical time in their product cycles. Thats an error on the part of AMD/ATI's operations management plain and simple. The health of the R600 and Barcelona chips would have most likely been better due to lesser fabrication process complications on the CPU and GPU sides of things. Also ATI probably would have been a billion dollars cheaper if they had launched the R600 as poorly as they did (its doing pretty damn good now with the new drivers though).

It wouldn't have mattered what the corporate side of things was doing.
R600 and Barcelona were had problems on the engineering side.
They would have been delayed either way.

The name on the company doesn't make yields tank, chips leak, or create speed path issues.

edit:
It is also the case that AMD was running out of time.
Intel's hints for adding graphics modules to the CPU or CPU package predated the acquisition.

Let me ask all of you a question about brand loyalty. Why did Intel manage to stay afloat just fine being second to AMD for nearly 4 WHOLE YEARS with tons of people buying worthless Pentium 4's/D's when AMD can barely make it a year without the press and resulting public opinion destroying them for being 6 months late?

There's market inertia, better dev relations, better engineering (guess whose compiler AMD uses to get peak scores), more reliable supply, better platforms (with a few notable exceptions), some possible exclusionary practices (K7 era), brand recognition, and (relevant to the topic of the thread) better marketing.

Intel could afford the big ad campaigns and all the surrounding fluff.
The Centrino platform was itself a master stroke.
Intel even has a catchy jingle.

What about the other company?
Why don't you AMD m--sorry, I just forgot what the subject of this sentence was.

Intel could market itself to most of the desktop market.

It could supply the OEM market.

It could rely on the slow upgrade and verification cycles of the server market (somewhat).

With Pentium M, it kept growing in the lucrative mobile market.

With Intel's clout, it could intimidate or bribe companies to impede AMD's progress.
This likely happened in the K7 period, going by the rumors going around and how terrified the motherboard makers were of showing any Socket A product.

Why is that? What made all these AMD users and fans jump ship for Intel?

Because most rational buyers are fans of performance, not corporate cheerleaders.

Personally I do believe AMD has a part that will compete with PENRYN clock for clock (in non SSE4+ applications) easily and will be a pretty decent chip to have in your box with the upcoming new chipsets and socket types.

I can, clock for clock, match Penryn. Trouble is, I operate at .000001 Hz (I'm groggy in the morning).

AMD fans need to keep faith in a company that didn't take FOUR whole years to get a worthy competitor to the market after the competition outran them.

Welcome to the world of CPU design.
You've pointed out the approximate length of time it took to design a high-end x86 processor, one that is actually partially related to an earlier design.

(Recall that the Pentium M was in high demand. People were begging to put it in a desktop. Intel had a competitive product prior to Core2)

How about AMD, which hasn't released a totally new architecture since the year 1999?

Bulldozer's the new one, and it won't be out until 2009.
It will be a decade before something new comes out.