Hector throws in the towel

IN THE LATE HOURS of the day, the inner circle of AMD voted in (now) former COO Dirk Meyer as the new CEO of AMD, whilst ousting Ruiz to take on a new role as executive chairman of AMD and chair of the board. The parties gushed compliments about each other throughout.

Hector had been CEO since April 2002 and AMD has since then been through ups and downs… mostly downs. From late 2007 onwards, things haven’t gone the best of ways for the company. Troubled by a rubbish launch of a highly-anticipated yet under-performing CPU marchitecture, and an inflated acquisition of graphics house ATI, AMD has had little to show this year in terms of competitiveness.

In his new role, he will “assist with high-level government and strategic partner relations”, which sounds a bit like being appointed “US Ambassador to Fiji” or some other paradise archipelago.

Cunningly, AMD also announced its second quarter results, which include a $1,189 million net loss, $876 million of which purport to that ATI write-off we’ve mentioned a couple of times. In a way, get all the news out of your system at once and give the new CEO a fresh start.

AMD is now focusing on re-orienting and re-shaping its business model to put the company in the black through “the core technologies that differentiate AMD”, said Mr. Meyer.

If Charlie’s predictions are correct and AMD eventually splits down the seams, Dirk Meyer is the right man to head the engineering end of business and get competitive products out the door. As things stand, Dirk has his work cut out for him with Intel beating it to every punch. A lot of work will have to go into an AMD Renaissance. Although AMD borged ATI, only now is it in a position to leverage the graphics tech and that, sirs, will require some bold engineering.

The newly appointed CEO has been quoted as having said he’s “tremendously excited”. Good luck to ya, chum. µ