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AMD Reports $611 Million Loss
mpfife writes "Toms Hardware reports that declining microprocessor sales have pushed AMD deeply into the red. 'The company reported a net loss of $611 million on revenues of $1.233 billion, which is more than 20% below the guidance the company expected at the end of Q4 2006. The loss includes charges related to the ATI acquisition in the amount of $113 million, but is mainly a result of the increasing competition with Intel in the microprocessor market.'"
I wonder if AMD will loose the competition to Intel all together.
Do we risk going back to having only one big CPU producer?
I seem to recall that Solaris is now also based on Intel chips (or was that AMD chips).
I have always been buying Intel CPU's until now, but still I am rather fond of AMD as they have forced Intel to get their act together.
When Elaine is up, George is down. When George is up, Elaine is down.
But I have to ask, while AMD were on top with the Athlon for several years - were they just sitting on their laurels?
... what about all the people who have lost money through electricity bills?!
/. was never posted :-(
it's probably not really AMD's concern, but some time ago i did post a ask slashdot over what the most electricity efficient computer board is. i'm drawn towards epia-style boards now, as my linux box is pretty much idle these days, so it makes sense to try and use something that does not burn away cash. anyway, that ask
Why UNIX?
Regardless of your feelings on the Intel/AMD processors, I don't think any one of us wants to envision a world with only Intel making x86 processors. Don't get me wrong, they're doing an excellent job, but just how much of this recent surge was a result of the increased competition from AMD?
I am not an expert. If I am misled in something, please correct me.
Ouch.
For a while there Sun was only using AMD chips in there X86_64 architecture based systems. Very soon they will have Intel based systems available.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Everyone else seems too these days..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
611 million? and they are a succesful company?
I don't understand the business world, really I don't. It's almost as if money at that level is little more then a scorecard.
I'm about to build a machine. According to Tom's Hardware, if you want to build a gaming machine these days, you have to go core 2 duo. AMD is posting a loss because they can't compete right now. Not news.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
I like AMD .. they innovate .. they compete .. and best of all they ensure that Intel keeps innovating too.
Whether or not you hold strong allegiance to either AMD or Intel, no sane consumer would find solace in these numbers. I hope AMD picks up the pieces soon.
It just will take time
Sure, in the future that will be an issue.. but its not today. FPGAs cant compete with mass produced chips for price or speed, yet.
Food blueprint licensing? We do that now with cookbook recipes.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I realize that numbers like this can be misleading, especially when they are doing some significant spending (new fabs, acquiring new companies, filing patents, etc.), however an investor never likes to see a company fail to break even by such a huge margin.
I really hope that whatever AMD has in the works pans out... if they stay behind the technology curve for long after spending like they have recently, they may be stuck waiting for Intel to stop innovating so actively again.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Get ready for more losses w/yalls DRM AMD..
While it is true that they are in a world of hurt right now, they have taken concrete actions that should deliver another round of highly profitable quarters, and their new quad core processors and power consumption ratings should result in their usage in a lot of boxen.
That plus the breakdown of the MSFT monopoly and the Wintel dictatorship (disclosure - I have owned MSFT before, and own I think 400 shares of Intel) with the low cost push and power push for PCs and laptops using processor chips, should mean they will return to profit in short order.
The market always projects 4-6 months ahead, except in Japan and Europe where it tends to project 6-18 months ahead.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
We are all just people.
Not if investers are smart. Duopolies are the next best thing to having a monopoly, meaning it has fat profit margins.
We call that an oligopoly, actually. A duopoly is just a form of it. The market can exist with one monopoly, an oligopoly with competitors who do not compete (either thru blatant signals, established contracts, territorial agreements, or price fixing), an oligopoly with minor competition (what has existed for many years with Wintel and AMD since the fall of Motorola's dominance), a mixed market (usually little regulation, almost as efficient as a properly regulated competitive market), a competitive market (regulated), or a hyper-capitalistic market (which usually crashes and players don't survive long, and thus is less efficient in practice).
But investors, as a class, are not smart. They tend to have a hard time selling on loss, and overbuy on profit. This is why ETF funds should do better than most directed funds, and why mutual index funds outperform almost all investors.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
AMD was founded by Jerry Sanders, a high-flying salesman originally from Intel who never quite fitted in. In Andy's Grove's Bio of Intel, he describes Sanders as fast and loose and the AMD corporate culture akin to a Las Vegas Casino: Very extravagant and over the top. Nevertheless, AMD did produce some killer products which at the time made life hard for Intel.
v e_1.html How is that going to reverse a declining market share? AMD should learn from the disaster Intel faced a few years ago when it wanted to build a CPUID into their chips that would allow tracking of customers. There was a backlash. Now here AMD are doing the same thing, at the same time their market share is declining?
AMD successfully played the market well, offering very fast CPUs for cheaper than Intel could muster. But recently they dropped the ball. Not only have they not come up with an answer to Intel's Core Duo, but AMD have been doing some bizarre stuff like taking over ATI, then announcing they would build DRM into ATI graphics cards. http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/28/14OPcur
Maybe they (and SONY) should fire their board and create a Slashdot forum to run the company. We could hardly do a worse job!
On the bright side Intel are turning out nice stuff these days and have said they intend to get into the 3D market again. Declining PC sales will hopefully keep their prices down. Even if AMD go down the tubes, we'll be ok... I hope.
AMD is throwing itself and ATi in the pit, so nVIDIA can buy them both, as originally planned.
Yes, I'll buy every processor Apple makes.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
AMD had $611 million dollars? How many employees do they have out of curiousity? All you'd need really would be like what...1,222 non-factory employees to quit, take the money and move to brazil to live the rest of their days as wealthy tire magnets.
Oh wait, that's probably illegal to for some reason.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Ugly, ugly, quarter for AMD. The problem is that Intel is more than competitive again. Core 2 Duo's are generally better than Athlon X2's. And Quad core, even in Intel's glue-two-chips-together hack job, far outperforms a dual core.
So, AMD has lost the high end. And in chips, the high end is incredibly profitable. An Opteron costs only marginally more to manufacture than a $50 Sempron, but retails for 10X more. This time last year, AMD was on the good side of the chip pricing world... right now, it's not.
Fortunately, the next generation chip is around the corner, and things should be a little bit more even at the top end. The key question to AMD investors at this time, is WHEN will the chip be released?!
Slashdot has an advertising section disguised as "Opinion Center" paid for by Intel. Slashdot is now worthless for hearing AMD news.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Apple is Intel (chip wise) dumbass. Pardon the language.
Amd has to try something new. They have to be different.
A better advertising campaign would help.
There is tons of confusion on processor types and speeds.
I have another company in mind that I think may start competing directly with Intel in the CPU market.
I welcome anyone to venture a guess into what I'm thinking.
Lets just say that to compete in that industry, you would probably have to launch yourself outside that box and think spatially...
This comment doesn't say much intentionally and is based on gut feeling entirely, but it should get some of you thinking.
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
The AMD/Intel dogfight is about way more than x86 market share...it's about the future of the hardware platform. Intel has always been restrained by competitors who will offer us a user-friendly alternative to whatever Intel and Microsoft are dreaming up. When Intel and Microsoft were pushing the CPUID, AMD refused to go along and Microsoft had to make do with a hardware profile they whip up from the onboard devices and serial numbers. If it was not for AMD, every web site you visit today would be able to read your cpu serial number and log your machine in as a unique visitor. Instead of the RIAA grabbing IP addresses and attempting to identify the user with some cumbersome legal process, they would just log your cpuid and subpoena the corresponding machine. Microsoft is still working to that end with whatever tools they can and they know that they need amd and intel completely and irrevocably in bed with them which they know cannot happen when amd and intel are still bitter competitors. So Microsoft has never done anything to help AMD and hopes that AMD is finally sinking for good.
Opinion Center, I'd like to point out that for a long time we (collectively, Slashdot) complained that Intel spent so much money on marketing with second-rate chips. As a systems admin performance on the server side can really count. With the introduction of the 5160 Intel is once again a legitimate competitor. At least for the time being, at the top of the x86 market.
There hasn't been a lot of exciting news regarding our old favorite, AMD. I'm sure that will change again. But for now, when I purchase new kit they aren't even on the radar (unless I'm checking sun gear).
Quack, quack.
Phantom Entertainment will release the CPU from their Phantom Console!!
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I could vaguely be considered an AMD fanboy, well I used to be. The problem is AMD's been resting on their laurels for a while now. Intel released the Core 2 Duo which is pretty frickin' awesome, and of course the expensive but glamorous Quad cores, and AMD responded with 65nm rehashes of the same old X2 chips, same clock speeds, same cache sizes. I've seen no reason to upgrade my AMD in almost 2 years now, and that strikes me as very very wrong! AMD is now considered a budget processor, because even their fastest CPU is under 200 bucks. Good bang for the buck, and the lower power consumption is nice, but computers are one industry that isn't run by the jews... we want expensive screamers that can tear Supreme Commander a new asshole. This is the industry that spawned Quad-SLI, WD Raptors and desktop RAID. High end is where you build prestige for your brand, which helps sell the low-end stuff to the unwashed masses. The truly dedicated AMD fans resorted to Opterons because of their tighter tolerances, therefore higher overclocking potential. That's what we want, and we're willing to throw money at AMD as long as they give us the fastest chip on the market, so what the hell are they doing about it ?
AMD had been in the lead for a long time, but Intel finally leapfrogged them. Now AMD needs to pull one hell of a rabbit out of their hat if they want to stay in the game. To hell with 4x4, it's a waste. We can do that already with Opterons. Give us Quad-core Athlons NOW! Larger caches! Higher clocks! MORE! If AMD can't provide, then it's time to pack up their marketing department and go back to being a small-time OEM chip supplier.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
You can count roughly 1$ in electricity per year for every watt something uses if it runs 24/7 (assuming ~10 cents/KWh -- but that does vary quite a bit I must admit). Plus AC costs indeed (but then again lowering heating bill during winter for some too).
Thankfully most PCs don't "max out" their PSU's ratings, but they can still cost a fair amount -- good idea to get an efficient 80plus model, it'll pay for itself soon enough.
Ubuntu comes built for two platforms, i386 and AMD 64.
If Ubuntu sticks with that, and manages to become the breakthrough "Linux for Everybody," AMD ends up the benefactor - a distro compiled for i386 costs majorly in speed, in ways that show up in normal desktop use.
Consider that Michael Dell is personally testing Ubuntu, and that Dell itself has hit a rough patch of late, and is looking for new ways to differentiate itself. Canonical is also working closely with Sun to make Ubuntu the superior Linux platform for Java. So if (very big if) Ubuntu breaks out backed by a large Dell marketing campaign in the desktop space plus Sun's support in the commodity server space, not to mention its continuing excellent word-of-mouth, and if Ubuntu remains best-tuned to AMD, that's all to AMD's future advantage.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
When Intel and Microsoft were pushing the CPUID
CPUID is not the same as the Pentium III's Processor Serial Number. Get your terms straight if you want to be taken seriously. Bear in mind also that the PSN was disabled by default and was ditched entirely a year after introduction because nobody was using it. Even Microsoft never used it as part of it's product activation. AMD had nothing to do with it. You are a paranoid fool.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
The market for chips is analogous. After years of expansion, the world has the capacity for all the chips it can possibly use. Instead of pulling back, Intel and AMD have been pouring money into more new fabs, thusly producing even more chips that aren't needed.
From Bill Fleckenstein' Inventory glut spells doom for techs:
While Intel is the stronger of the two, both will get slaughtered in the coming economic realignment (aka recession/depression). Seen big-picture, the rich can't get richer forever, and eventually 'teh masses' will figure out that we're getting screwed by 'the system' (perpetually broken government schools, taxes, corporate welfare, military-industrial complex, medical-industrial complex, perpetual war against phantom enemies, etc), and rise up to take back what's rightfully ours.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Why do you think it was disabled by default and later ditched? Intel was forced to make the changes because of public outcry due to some ugly PR.
They all go boom. They always do. Why? Because at the end of the day they're all Intel COMPATIBLE not the other way around. Intel will occasionally falter and their architecture may run out of gas like the P4 but at best all any of the other companies can be is faster or cheaper following the compatibility lead of Intel. Dual or Quad core is a technical workaround for heat and power problems that brought the P4 to a screeching melting halt. AMD can only be a faster cheaper version of that. The other companies like VIA decided to build in the opposite direction and instead of competing against Intel they're building smaller slower chips that run cold with little power.
Uh huh. That's a good way to put out a "prediction" and be able to claim plausible deniability when it doesn't happen. Time to put up.
Intel's iron is cooler and faster. Eventually AMD will come up with something better and they'll start an upward climb again. But really, this is Intel's game to lose. As long as they keep pumping out the nice Core Duo type CPUs, I really don't care if AMD disappears into the mists of oblivion. My homebrew PC runs AMD, but my next homebrew will be Intel. I'm very impressed with my MacBook, and I can't wait to see what I can do with a full PC and an Intel CPU.
Fair enough.
Judging from the looks of it, I would say it's a safe bet NVidia is going to be moving in that direction in the near future.
My cards are on the table.
Lets see if I guessed it well.
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
When AMD released it's 64bit line of processors, they laid down a pretty high card. Not a trump, but still, looked like they'd win the hand.
BUT, when AMD released their dual core product line... ah hah!! There's a trump card. Beat that!
And Intel was afraid. Mainly afraid of themselves because they had sat back for so long enjoying the successes of their monopoly.
So... Intel struck back. And struck back hard. And when AMD was trying to get back up, they struck hard again, and again, and again, and again. You might even say brutal.
AMD is working on some new technology. A quad core... in fact it's a quad core they had in development before Intel even dreamed of doing a quad core.... but AMD was basking in the joys of their (very) short lived success from playing the dual core trump card..... they just forgot that the game wasn't over.
Now Intel has a quad core. Technically, is it as good on paper as AMD's hopefully soon to be release quad? I would say not. There's a lot of good technology in AMDs quad. HOWEVER, is it a trump card? I don't think it is. I think AMD is still heading for some troubling times.
They better take a SERIOUS fucking look at their L2 cache sizes.
I see Core 2 Duos with 2 megs per fucking core.
I see Turion 64 X2's with a paltry 256K.
That's just the LAPTOP end.
Hey, AMD, wonder why you're not going any fucking where, even though you've had a superior bus?
Remember the Pentium D (Basically a hyped up pentium 3 with 2 megs of L2 cache) that smoked many higher-end Pentium 4s in gaming?
Pay attention! My 640K AMD64 3000+ could be smoking many other machines if it just had a DECENT CACHE ON-DIE!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
As an Intel employee, I'm all for AMD eating it bigtime. Not because their product is horrendous; I'm sure the few chip engineers they have are pretty smart guys. But because they just copy Intel. Why did they buy ATI? Are they trying to copy Intel's "platform" design? You can only copy the big guy for so long. As a developer, I can write C++ and compile with the Intel C++ compiler. I can write all versions of SSE, use OpenMP, and get awesome tech documentation. Does AMD even have a compiler? Why would I ever use 3DNow or any other AMD-only hardware feature? Intel owns the CPU roadmap and AMD has to implement Intel CPU features to survive.
Plus, they probably run their fabs on VBScript and 10-20 year old COBOL commandline software. Their automation department is probably chock full of VB6 experts but not many with any real talent.
AMD will go to a distant second and then Intel will raise their prices. We will also get the joys of DRM built into the chips (since there wll be no other major CPU manufacturer)...
Fun...I am going to go buy some cheap chips now while they are still available..
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
If AMD/ATI open source the Linux drivers for their graphics cards, where do you think Dell is gonna turn when it comes to supporting Linux? Suddenly ATI will be worth buying again by Linux users, and Dell would be buying in bulk; pushing up AMD/ATI sales with very little cost to themselves.
You call the competition between Intel and AMD minor competition?
;).
So what's major competition? When your products are _expected_ to (and actually) get better, faster and cheaper every week instead of just every few months? Show me examples, I'm curious now.
Coca Cola vs Pepsi = minor competition. McD vs others = minor competition.
Smart investors should avoid investing in IT companies - much easier to accidentally get it right in other areas
Sir, I don't understand your comment "computers are one industry that isn't run by the jews". What little I can see in that statement is a differentiation between people based upon race, which may indicate prejudice. It isn't okay to write off your post as over-enthusiastically fanboy-ish, because irrational prejudice is a harmful thing. If you didn't post with prejudice against Jewish people, can you explain what you meant?
(And as for quad-core, I read somewhere of an AMD exec admitting they should have done an Athlon64 FX X4 in the same manner as the Core2 Quad: two pieces of dual-core silicon in one chip package. Further, I suspect that "Larger caches! Higher clocks! MORE!" won't do in the long run -- even Microsoft have abandoned their 16-bit legacy software support in Vista, showing that bolting on quick and easy improvements are a bad long-term plan: a smarter use of the architecture, better design, production and power efficiencies will provide genuinely better computing for AMD's clients.)
If Intel turns into the 800 gorilla in the CPU market, you can kiss your $200 core 2 duo chips goodbye.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
For CPU's which consumers may actually purchase see this article http://www.legitreviews.com/article/490/1/ , the 5600+ at the same price point (with mobo) as the E6300 does better, and where it does worse it loses by 1 or 2 points (5%).
Probably the most insightful post of the day; thanks!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Intel are only more populer than AMD and make more sales as they use companies like Dell, intel are just another Microsoft that try and take over everything. AMD will make it back without any problems I am sure.
Webmaster SEO Forum
Intel was forced to make the changes because of public outcry due to some ugly PR.
And, as I stated, the fact that nobody (Not Microsoft, not the RIAA, not "every web site") was using it. Not because of anything AMD did, which the OP claimed. The above "Insightful" comment is both factually wrong and rife with paranoid delusion.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
You may want to get on that. I recently bought the fastest available AMD chip on the market (Athlon X2 6000+, 2x 3.0GHz cores) for about £170 (~$340) delivered. What's more, I could have had a Core 2 Duo E6600 for less, and an E6700 for little more, but decided that I'd show my support for AMD and vote with my wallet. It's so important that the competition stays on for Intel.
Now is a great time to upgrade your CPU. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ is my preferred retailer, FYI.
Amnesty International
AMD used to be a user-friendly company. By user-friendly I mean a company that does the best for the people it gets the money from, as one would logically think a company should try to do to make money. They offered better performance for the buck, and gave better vibes as a company.
Now they not only lost the crown of price/performance, but they started doing stupid shit like Treacherous Computing, purchasing ATi or wanting to spike their graphics cards with digital AIDS (DRM).
I'm not sorry they are doing wrong. In fact, I'm deeply relieved. I'm so glad. Of course, I don't support Intel either, they are even bigger DRM faggots than AMD. Both can fold.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
IBM? It's the only big enough to copete with intel silicon chips producer that I can think of. Some time ago there was a rumor saying that it would buy AMD.
IBM? Sun? Via? Microsoft? NVIDIA? Google!?
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'