ATI is the iceberg, AMD is the Titanic and Hector is the ambitious captain trying to get to New York in record time.

What could go wrong.......

basically ruiz is re-assuring the board amd will make a profit in h2
just in time for him to leave late q4 with a performance bonus
that'd be my guess anyway

if he's looking to get amd profitable he should lead by example
like say taking a 75% cut off of his salary
that'd be 750k per year that amd saves

also seems like shanghai won't be competitive against nehalem
basing this on moving away from continuous component performance and leadership
essentially going for the low-end mass market "good enough" segment.
obviously nothing wrong with that as that usually starts to collide with the whole bang for buck market
but unfortunately without amd stepping up to the plate it means processor development will stagnate for a while
(see nvidia g80 vs ati)

So Hector just played Bob Marley during the conference?

Hector Ruiz is to AMD as Bush is to USA, only more so. If he isn't removed soon the company will have no future.

In other news, AMD branded koolaid hit the streets with a bang, after a few sips beverage consumers were filled with a eerie sense of calm as they flung themselves off the nearest cliff.

"To that end, we are re-architecting the business so that our financial success is not invariably dependent on continuous component performance and leadership."
Pfff, not exactly news. Wow, what a great CEO. He doesn't care if the company's products aren't constantly dependant on performance leadership. Wow, that'll really send a good message to the workers.

*Sigh* ... what a disappointment.

AMD has negative cash flow.

If they blew their $2B on R&D, they'd go out of business tomorrow. Unless they got another loan or investment, which would give them more cash. Which is what they did. Which is why they have $2B in cash.

Where did this $2b cash margin come from?

And does it count when you're actually in debt?

What a load of horse @#$%. To use the economic downturn as a reason is Hector saying we don't want to admit that we are messed up. I quote: "...we have learned to anticipate and prepare for the inevitable downturn...we have some financial cushioning in place if the macro-economic environment continues to disappoint, particularly in North America." Intel doesn't seem to be having a problem in North America with the downturn.

If your product sucks so does your balance sheet.

I just don't understand how can a company in such harsh financial situation, with potential job cuts, justify the huge salary of someone like Hector Ruiz. I'm sure that the people that may lose their jobs, are also thinking about that...

He's saying they only just learned that they're in a cyclic industry? Isn't learning on the job basic truths about your industry something you expect of interns, not CEOs? They need to learn to "anticipate and prepare" for the inevitable product cycle. Going almost 5 years between major architectural introductions is how you fall permanently behind.

Read my lips: NO NEW TAXES!