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AMD To Close Plants, Lay off 2300, Lose Gateway
cdrudge writes: "According to this article on CNN, AMD will be closing 2 plants in Austin, TX and also their operations in Penang, Malaysia due to slack demand. 2300 jobs will be cut in the process. The same article mentions Gateway dropping it's 'Select' line of computers. Their 'Select' line of computers were Gateway's only AMD-based systems. A Gateway spokesperson said 'We're consolidating all of our offering behind Intel, which was the biggest part of our mix already.'"
AMD is dying.
As an afterthought, it was silly to think that an upstard company could shake an established power like Intel.
Microsoft is still going steady. I've not heard of any layoffs or site closings, and they have a number of excellent products (well, your opinion may vary, but I'm of the opinion that Windows XP, PocketPC 2002, XBox, Flight Sim 2K, and so on are all great products) in line for release very soon, or already released in a few cases.
Probably not the kind of thing you'd expect to hear on slashdot, but it's the truth. Take it or leave it.
This will kill their rep with the analysts. At least for a while. Thinking about buying ebay stock and taking AMD as a tax loss. If they start to improve then I might buy them again. Ebay is great. It's pretty much a monopoly and unlike MS increasing sales.
Flash market sucks. CPU price war is killing them. Their business isn't going to be good for a while. Gamers and overclockers won't make AMD's revenue grow.
I have had my fill of corporate cynicism in recent weeks. For once, I wish owners of corporations would pick a year (this year, maybe?) to not make a profit. Year after year, in all industries, the fruits of innovation and automation flow to the investor class. The flow appears to only go in one direction, for a slight recession and a single day of terrorism have spawned an outbreak of Layoff-itis. People everywhere are being layed off--an action with permanent results--in response to temporary conditions, all to maintain the level of profit that the Leech Class has grown accustomed to.
Now AMD joins the long list of companies perpetrating vast economic terrorism against people whose only crime is filling out a job application and working diligently day after day. Who will feed these 2,300 families and the ~100,000 families who were likewise fucked by the airline industry? Who will comfort the children whose parents commit suicide in desperation?
These are the people who make our laws, fill our heads with memes designed to guarantee permanently increasing profits, poison our water, and drag us into international conflict. Like the gods, they kill us for their sport. Have no sympathy for them--sell off all your stock and kiss those motherfuckers goodbye.
Jesus of Nazareth said something once that has perhaps never been more true: Money is the root of all evil.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
I consider it very unethical for companies like Gateway to sell computers with buggy and unreliable Via boards and overheated AMD chips to unsavvy low-end customers.
People pay more Intel machines because you have a guarantee of what you are buying.
Back in the dark old K6 days, AMD was simultaneously shipping 300 Mhz K6-2's running at 66,75,83 and 100Mhz FSB speeds. These were mostly in cut rate Compaq, Packard-Bell and HP retail systems.
When Intel makes chips with the same speed and different internals, they designate the chip differently. (eg Celeron 300 v. Celeron 300A, Pentium 3 667/667A/667B, etc)
AMD is a crappy, cut-rate company. Their new marketing-name convention further illustrates this.
Be a Slashbot and save $20 on a chip.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK