The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

AMD loses cash less quickly

Is the bottom in sight?

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

AMD's CEO Dirk Meyer has fired a shot at his Intel counterpart, Paul Otellini, who recently said that the PC market has hit rock bottom.

In a call on Tuesday revealing his company's 2009 first-quarter results, Meyer said: "I've heard some say we've hit bottom. I don't know how someone could say we've hit bottom in the current economic climate."

For the sake of AMD's investors and employees, let's hope that Otellini is more accurate than Meyer. AMD's net revenue was essentially unchanged from the previous heinous quarter - $1,177m (£802m) in Q1 2009 compared with $1,162 (£792m) in Q4 2008 - but down significantly from the $1,487m (£1,013m) during the same period last year.

There were bright spots to be found, however. Although the company is still losing money, it's losing it more slowly. The net loss for Q1 2009 was $414m (£282m), a vast improvement over the $1,437m loss in Q4 2008 (£979m).

But even the good news had a tinge of badness. For example, even though microprocessor sales were up on a unit basis, the average selling prices (ASPs) for those chips was down.

Meyer put the blame squarely on the enterprise market. "Stand back and look at it," Meyer said, "Our server business was down a little bit quarter-on-quarter, while both the desktop and notebook businesses were up quarter-on-quarter, which affects the overall ASP and moves it down."

On the plus side, Meyer noted that he believes that GPU sales "might see a spike" when Microsoft releases the DirectX 11-enhanced Windows 7 expected later this year. He also has high hopes for the upcoming Congo variant of AMD's Yukon platform, which he said will ship near the end of the current quarter.

But oh, those pesky enterprise customers. After noting that "the outlook is murky at best," Meyer admitted that "The enterprise side of the commercial market is clearly still weak. Wallets are closed."

Which echoes Otellini, who recently said that enterprise customers are "keeping their wallets shut."

And that's one analysis upon which Dirk and Paul have found common ground. ®

Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider

Latest Comments

Holy Grail Territory Again.

"But oh, those pesky enterprise customers. After noting that "the outlook is murky at best," Meyer admitted that "The enterprise side of the commercial market is clearly still weak. Wallets are closed."

Which echoes Otellini, who recently said that enterprise customers are "keeping their wallets shut."

And that's one analysis upon which Dirk and Paul have found common ground"

Probably that is because enterprising customers are doing IT for themselves, nowadays, and don't need to be carrying dead wood supporting businesses with them .....as they Cerebrally Connect with the Cloud Crowd for Control and Power of SCADA Systems which you may or may not realise are Phishy/Spooky Dragnets with No Leading Mindset of their Own .... Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. Thus are they Vulnerable to Baited Grooming/Trailed Novel Content in Parameters of Interest and that can be XXXXPloited to the Extreme in both the White Hat and Black Hat Genre/MetaDataMeme.

And Playing One off against the Other Provides Absolute Power and Obscene Wealth in Both Extremes Controlling All Shades of Opinion and Levels of Intelligence in Between.

0
0

More from The Register

 breaking news
BBC-featured call centre slapped with hefty fine for unwanted calls
PPI pests: Swansea-based firm stung for £225k by ICO
Microsoft to open Windows Stores inside 600 Best Buy locations
Product showcases 'must be seen to be believed'
 breaking news
What did the Lehman Brothers implosion look like to a techie?
Insider tells all about the Gnab Gib at Lehmans
 breaking news
The only Waze is Google: Ad giant tipped to gobble map app 'for $1.3bn'
Pac-Man-satnav-ish upstart in bidding war with Apple, Facebook
 breaking news
1-in-10 e-tomes 'are self-published'... most are 'rubbish' says book ed
Publishing man scoffs at go-it-alone writers, ursines still fouling in forests
 breaking news
Facebook RSS reader said to uncloak June 20
Secret event scooped by Scottish developer?
 breaking news
O2 averts strike action over mass Capita outsourcing deal
Details of new agreement not yet released