AMD's CEO, Dirk Meyer, was upbeat yesterday morning as he presented an overview of his firm's near future, declaring "the game has changed" and that AMD would be redefining the way people interacted with their PCs going forward.
"We're on the verge of making the game changer," said Meyer, whilst reiterating AMD's commitment to the four cornerstones of profitability, focus, execution and transformation. Little did we know at the time what AMD was about to announce.
Indeed, over the course of 2009, Meyer has had to steer his firm through a crippled economy, $3.6 billion in debt, a spin-off of AMD's fabs into GlobalFoundries and the sale of various bits and bobs of its consumer business.
But the new found focus does seem to be paying off somewhat, with the firm's product group actually claiming a profit in recent quarterly earnings results, despite the fact that on paper the company still made a net loss of $128 million, owing to still being somewhat entangled financially with GlobalFoundries.
Meyer, whose firm recently came out with the most advanced GPUs currently available on the market, said it wasn't necessarily the technology behind the products that really mattered, rather it was the "user experience."
The CEO proudly declared his team had pulled together and was "working as a single company towards the promise of fusion," hitting or exceeding all the targets the firm set for itself along the way. "I feel very good about the execution," he said.
"Increasingly it's the graphics processors and the tight incorporation of the GPU and the CPU that will really make a difference moving forward," Meyer continued, adding that although he felt good progress had been made in 2009, there was still much work to be done in order to produce truly "compelling offerings."
Later, speaking exclusively to HEXUS, Meyer spoke of his excitement for 2010 and 2011, which he agreed was a "magic year" for the firm. "That's where it really all kicks off," he told us, adding "we've got good stuff."
Meyer told us he strongly believed AMD had "a good story," ahead, repeating his mantra that the firm would "change the game with fusion," and that a "cultural change" was already in flight.
Spinning-off GlobalFoundries "created the right business model for AMD," Meyer continued, describing the fab company as "a powerhouse in the foundry business." The deal, he explained, gave the firm the ability to become a more agile company, boasting that without the burden of a fab "we're going to turn into a cashflow machine."
