Earlier today, reports began spreading around the Internet that AMD was
handing out pink slips to roughly 800 jobs. Various sites quoted sources, but declined to give much information other than the 5%
figure.
A reduction in workforce wouldn't seem too out of character for AMD which experienced
a rough year following its acquisition of ATI Technologies. AMD reported
revenue of $1.77B and a $1.722B loss during Q4 2007. The company also
experienced an operating loss of $1.678B. For the entire year, AMD brought in
revenue of $6.012B, but suffered a net loss of $3.379B.
Despite the grim financials and new reports of job cuts, an AMD spokesman
this afternoon denied that the Sunnyvale, California-based company made cuts to
its workforce of 16,000 employees.
DailyTech contacted AMD for
comment. Shortly after the company replied, "We did not have a workforce reduction."
Despite the denial from AMD, there is still the real possibility that AMD
could move to reduce its workforce if its Q1 2008 financials look grim.
"The point is that the quarter has not closed just yet, so AMD is not
likely to make any moves," said Technology Business Research analyst John
Spooner. "After the quarter closes, the company will decide what to announce,
if anything, with regard to its headcount."
Instead, the company today announced that Nigel Dessau will take
over as chief marketing officer (CMO). Dessau spent the past two decades with
companies like IBM and Sun and is expected to help lift up AMD's image around
the world.
"Nigel’s customer knowledge and experience working for IBM and Sun are
tremendous assets as AMD charts a new course for the industry with initiatives
such as Accelerated Computing," said AMD President and COO Dirk Meyer.
"As we deliver platforms and solutions to best meet our customers’ needs,
we will lean heavily on Nigel - who has a proven track record of developing and
executing clear, compelling global marketing campaigns."
With Intel’s new
Penryn processors on the horizon and an influx of six-core
Xeon processors coming by year's end, AMD needs to stay on its toes. The
company earlier this month began shipping the long-awaited B3
stepping Opteron and Phenom processors which fixed the TLB
bug.
AMD is also on track to release 2.6GHz parts by the fall of 2008 and hopes
to transition to 45nm production lines in 2009.
