AMD Lures IBM Veteran to Lead Chip Design

Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that Advanced Micro Devices yesterday said it had hired Jeff VerHeul away from IBM to lead the direction of AMD's future silicon design. VerHeul's most recent post during his 25-year stint at IBM was head of engineering and technology services. Now, he will lead the development of all future AMD computing products, including silicon roadmap design across all AMD's engineering sites worldwide."

Comments

Move over Intel (hopefully)

[Kawahee]

Hopefully this will give nex-gen AMD chips a fresh design and hopefully push them to a significant majority over Intel. I've always personally favoured AMD chips, simply because they're damn good value, and efficient.

Re:Move over Intel (hopefully)

[gregorio]

I've always personally favoured AMD chips, simply because they're damn good value, and efficient.

Or maybe because you're the typical geek who hates everything that's big and dominant. Geeks need to love "different" things, made for "special" people or not. Geeks need iPods and Unix computers, because other players and Windows computers are not for special people like you guys.

If someday AMD beats the crap out of Intel and start to be the big guy, you might as well start talking about the superiority of Intel products and how it is so unfair that AMD dominates the market. =]

And my point is...? Well, it's not really smart to be such a big fan of a company/group/etc. I think that we should give our respect to good products, actions and attitudes. Cheerleading for a commercial entity is just pure nonsense. I'm a consumer, I want good products, good actions and good attitudes. The world is about results. It's naive to expect that just because you "like" a group all of their actions are going to fit your views and needs. It's up to their shareholders if AMD is going to succeed in the long term, have giant profits or giant marketshare.

I'm giving my soul to good results, not for companies, groups or whatever. That's why my current PC holds an AMD processor. Next time I'm buying a computer, I'll just buy whatever is best for me, AMD or not. I'm not "hoping" AMD wins, I'm just hoping the market is filled with good products and plenty of choice.

Re:Move over Intel (hopefully)

[utopianfiat]

Score 3 insightful? gregorio just went off on a rant that was totally unrelated to the original post:

>> I've always personally favoured AMD chips, simply because they're damn good value, and efficient.
> I think that we should give our respect to good products, actions and attitudes.

Parent never said he was a *fan* of AMD, just that he liked AMD's products. Your entire post, albeit interesting, is moot point. Which I guess is alright, (+4 interesting, -1 moot)
I think calling people on fanatical cheerleading of companies that clearly don't deserve it (see: Apple, Microshaft) is probably something we need to call them on, but I don't see a problem with cheerleading a company that produces good products, tends to be the "good guy" in relation to their major competitor (see: Intel v. AMD for list of anti-competitve abuses, try groklaw, I'm lazy), and generally has more advanced processors.
Also, it's not that it's "unfair" that Intel dominates the market, it's that they dominate it unfairly. If you read the literature behind the Intel v. AMD case, you'll see how Intel basically has a testicle-grip over a lot of the market using scare tactics and deep pockets to keep AMD off the shelves.
Personally, I'm *hoping* AMD wins, because right now AMD, I think, is the best option for myself and my systems, not to mention I'd like to reward competition and innovation.

Re:Move over Intel (hopefully)

[4of12]

I think that we should give our respect to good products, actions and attitudes.

Excellent. Everyone agrees on this one.

Now consider that when the number of competitors in a marketplace decreases, that the remaining businesses don't need to provide as much quality for the price. Ultimately, with a single large dominant player in the marketplace, be it chips, OS, routers, petrol, telephone service or whatever, you end up paying a lot of money for little quality.

And there are multiple barriers to entry in any of these markets.

So the customer gets shafted.

How can the marketplace dynamics change for the better?

1. Government regulation. [Which is imperfect, given that legislation is crafted in a marketplace, too.]
2. Increase the number of sellers [eg, China, India.]
3. Lower the barriers to entry, say through technological means.
4. Artificially encourage small competitors by creating a culture of irrational fanboys buying Product B because it's rare and gives them 733t status. They don't mind the technical hurdles and actually relish overcoming them.

Cheerleading for a commercial entity is just pure nonsense.

Cheerleading may be irrational, but it remains one of the ways to change the marketplace dynamics.

If irrational fans support niche players like AMD, Apple, Linux, non-Cisco routers and biodiesel fuels, then I know I'll benefit. So I don't complain.

IBM

[Renraku]

Don't be hatin' IBM. They've had some really good ideas/innovations in the past and I figured an IBM team member would end up either at AMD or Google.

But...why?

[MunchMunch]

I'm certainly not an expert, as I'm sure many replies will point out, but I thought AMD has been out-innovating IBM's PowerPC line for quite some time.

So isn't this by all signs a step backwards?

Re:But...why?

[ucahg]

Do you think AMD has been out-innovating IBM because all of IBM's engineers are stupid? Do you think its the fault of this one man?

Their strategy is simple: Hire the best they can find.

Re:But...why?

[ZenShadow]

PowerPC isn't IBM's only line. How about Cell? If the rumors about Intel's "new direction" prove out, having someone who developed something like the Cell in house could prove to be very fortuitous.

-S

Re:But...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neglect is a strong word. Basically, IBM wants a volume partner on terms that they agree with. Apple wasn't it, Apple wasn't willing to put up the cash or the numbers for IBM to continue with them. The console market looks to be providing IBM with something that they want. From the looks of the new 970s, they can do everything than anyone else is doing multicore, low power, etc..

POWER5, POWER6 and other initiatives are things IBM has to do for IBM, period. The margin is high but it's part of an integrated solution, if you wish to sell high end servers or midframes (RS/6k and AS/400) then you have to make your own chips becuase there isn't an off the shelf part that does what needs to be done. Itanium is starting to get close but it has some huge weaknesses and it's not there yet, if it ever goes there. What else is there? Mips is all be dead, Sparc is on life support with an ambitious hail mary type play, PARISC is done... Where do you go? If you wish to sell services to those people, you have to build the whole stack because you can't just cobble a set of pentiums together put Windows "Server" on it and have anything even close to mainframe like performance or reliability. No matter what, IBM won't put Apple or someone else above the cash cows built on those parts. Everyone knows that going in to it, including Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Apple.

Re:Next slashdot story...

[ThePepe]

I havent actually checked to see which specific site Verheul was previously employed but given that both Intel's and AMD's headquarters are located in California he probably doesnt have anything to worry about.

My questions is how long are the rest of us going to have to wait before a ban on non-compete clauses filters out to the other 49 states?

Re:Wrong headline

[Knetzar]

Why would IBM want x86? They no longer make PCs and they want to be able to get both Intel and AMD processors for their non-power based servers.