NEWLY ENSCONCED Cap'n Dirk made some of his first utterances as AMD's CEO in a conference call yesterday.

Asked about whether AMD might respond to Intel's Atomic push, Meyer said that since AMD is, "a much smaller company with not nearly the scale that our competitor has." It doesn't intend, "to try to do absolutely everything they do in the marketplace."

Slightly smaller notebooks and inexpensive notebooks are a, " market segment that we're interested in," he said.

"We actually haven't talked in public about that, but I expect we'll be talking about that roadmap when we get together in November at our analyst conference," he said, claiming the firm was already hawking some chips for Netbooks already.

The call also touched on the "asset light" strategy dreamed up by predecessor Hector Ruiz before he shuffled off upstairs.

Chief bean counter Bob Rivet said the strategy would be, "a major reformation of the company," but specific details are also pretty "light".

Captian Dirk: He's an enterprising fellow

Meyer insisted the firm is "well on track" with its 45-nanometer plan. "We actually started production late last quarter and on track to begin volume shipment early in Q4," he said.

Following Intel to a 45nm process and handing over more production to external chip foundries were important steps to bringing AMD to a position of actually making a profit.

"Since we're so far away from profitability," Rivet confessed, "the first order of magnitude is operating profit at the operating income level, not at the net income level. First get to that level then we'll work to get the net," he said. He added that he reckoned AMD would show a profit in the second half of the year, a statement that sounds vaguely familar. µ