Randy Allen is promoted to oversee all of the company's commercial and consumer chip development.
In
its ongoing effort to return to financial stability, Advanced Micro Devices
announced May 12 that it is reorganizing its executive leadership to streamline
its business operations.
AMD announced that Randy Allen, who
oversaw the chip maker's workstation and server division, is now the senior
vice president in charge of the Computing Solutions Group, with responsibility
for the company's portfolio of consumer and commercial x86 microprocessors.
With Allen's promotion, AMD also
announced that Mario Rivas, who had been leading the Computing Solutions Group,
and Michael Cadieux, a senior vice president and chief talent officer, were
leaving the company to "pursue new opportunities."
In addition, AMD formed a new
division-called Central Engineering-that will oversee the development of the
company's chip technology and plan the company's technological road map. Both
Allen and the leadership of Central Engineering will report to President and
Chief Operating Officer Dirk Meyer.
"We are accelerating AMD's
transformation, reshaping the organization and bolstering our management team
to lead in our x86 microprocessor and graphics businesses," Meyer said in a
prepared statement.
The shuffling of executives comes as AMD
looks to regain its footing in the x86 chip market after six straight financial
losses and a badly botched rollout of its quad-core Opteron processor known as
"Barcelona," which suffered from a design flaw within the silicon that has
since been fixed. Several tops OEMs, such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Sun
Microsystems, are now offering the chip within their server portfolios.
In the meantime, Intel has surged ahead with new technologies, such as its
Atom processor for low-cost notebooks and mobile Internet devices and its
upcoming Nehalem
microarchitecture, which will make the company even more competitive in the
high-end server space thanks to advancements such as its own integrated memory
controller.
The departure of Rivas and Cadieux are not the only changes to the executive
suite. In April, Chief Technology Officer Phil
Hester left the company. Instead of replacing him, the company will have
CTOs within each of its five core divisions.
In a meeting with stock holders earlier this month, CEO
Hector Ruiz reaffirmed his desire to bring the company back to financial
stability by the end of the year. This could include spinning off part of
the company, such as the consumer electronics division. The company is also
planning to eliminate some 1,600 jobs.
However, Ruiz did not offer much in the way of specifics at the meeting.
Several analysts and industry watchers have called for more details about the
company's "asset smart" plan and what that could mean for AMD's
manufacturing abilities.
In the last week, the company detailed
an aggressive road map that calls for a switch to 45-nanometer
manufacturing by the end of 2008, which should help the company save money
while offering some technological advantages. In addition, AMD
is moving ahead with plans for six- and 12-core processors within the next two
years.
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