8.19.2007

The AMD Yard Sale

From the INQ.

By now, everyone is aware how deep AMD’s financial troubles are. I don't think anybody with a sane mind is willing to contest this important fact. However, the debate continues on the idea of an AMD comeback. History is peppered with examples of how AMD survived through obscurity and difficulty and managed to come out of the red every once in a while. Some repeatedly use the argument that AMD have been in this situation before and are used to operating in such environment. Well, not really.

Never has AMD in its entire history come to an embarrassing situation where they’re forced to put up a yard sale just to keep the business going. This itself is unique and draws no parallel to what AMD experienced in the past. To add to that, the game of leap frogging is over while AMD is losing half a billion dollars on a supposedly very healthy market. Barcelona is broken and AMD normally makes a profit when demand picks up. Things are very different this time around. Once a company starts selling one-off, non-operating assets it's just a matter of time.


Zoomed photo of the sign:

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, I think that photo is doctored. The inq reports the field was sold. Your photo looks like AMD unloaded fab tools and a 2001 Corolla...

LOL. Somebody's pulling my lariat. But if its true, way to demoralize the employees on the other side of the field. Nice going AMD.

Anonymous said...

“But if it’s true, way to demoralize the employees on the other side of the field. Nice going AMD.”

Well said.

I didn’t think of it that way, poor bastards. I suppose it shows how badly things really are, internally. I can only imagine the poor souls busting and working their asses off during the past nine months trying to fix a bad technology in the face of monumental corporate blunders and insurmountable debt. It has, after all, come down to a miserable land sale for the whole world to see.

I hope someone inside AMD writes a book about the whole affair. Questions need to be answered on WHY THEY GAMBLED BILLIONS ON PEOPLES JOBS AND SHAREHOLDERS MONEY!!! Those sons of bitches at the top should be brought up on charges from both camps. From an historical perspective, this borders on criminal incompetence.

What arrogant bastards; to think they could bite off SO MUCH, spend SO MUCH, and handle it with NVDA and INTC as very powerful adversaries! If they have nothing now, they certainly didn’t have anything then. Just a miserable 1.8 billion in cash, BIG DEAL! Nuevo Riche!

WTF were they thinking!

After last weeks tooling sell off, it has come to this, a chunk of land that kids played in.

WRECKTOR RUINZ, YOU ARROGANT SON OF A BITCH, YOU BLEW IT!
AND, YOU TOOK ATI AND IT’S EMPLOYEES WITH YOU!

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

Such a nice yard too.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps now the TRUE purpose of the last convertible note offering. While you have IDIOTS like FUDZILLA writing articles about AMD using it to RAISE CASH, the notes were wimply to enable AMD to pay off the MS loan.

Now unencumbered by the terms of the MS loan, AMD is free to start selling off whatever and whenever they want.

As for Sparks' comments they are dead on... the only thing to add is the BOARD of AMD should also be ashamed as they have done NOTHING during AMD's recent debacles... (though I'm sure they've gotten well compensated for sitting on their collective asses)

'Hector tell us more about how 30% marketshare breaks the monopoly and makes us all rich! Wow, and what is the downside? Possible massive debt, loans and operating losses for 1-2 years (after the best year of operating profits in history) - yeah let's do it!'

Unknown said...

Hector needs to realise that market share is like like clockspeed.
Sometimes having more doesn't equate to better performance. He should know that.

I'd rather have half the market share and sell my processors at 4x the price....

Anonymous said...

"the only thing to add is the BOARD of AMD"

I stand corrected buddy, I thought they were on the top. Then again, as you correctly pointed out, they were/are mere yes men and bottoms feeders that got a taste on the big time. Those ass kissers would have said yes to sell fake puke novelties with ASUS/Core2, AMD laptops.

Seriously, they all will retire millionaires. That's a fact.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

Whadaya think? Will this pig ever fly, NOW???? Not with my State and property taxes it won't!!!!

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=614190&category=BUSINESS&newsdate=8/15/2007
SPARKS

Unknown said...

In testing, performance of the 6400+ is 10-15% below the E6850, and the CPU has limited overclock capability, said the sources, who also pointed out that the price gap compared to the E6850 is not huge.

http://digitimes.com/mobos/a20070723PD205.html

AMD is finished.

Axel said...

Desperate times lead to desperate measures. You'd think they'd be above this, but AMD's home page now links to The Inquirer to prove the superiority of Opteron over Xeon. Check it out, under the News and Reviews heading.

Anonymous said...

AMD BEWARE! 2 GiG FSB are fresh out of the oven!

Hey Giant, hers one for Ya, very, very Juicy!

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8506

SPARKS