AMD's marketing chief bails ahead of Barcelona

Update AMD's flashy, big-talking marketing chief Henri Richard appears set to leave the building ahead of the company's biggest product launch of the year.

A report from some site called Hexus pegs Richard's departing on Sept. 8. That's a real pain, since AMD will unveil its four-core Opteron (Barcelona) chip at a Sept. 10 event in San Francisco.

Richard has really nice smelling hands and drives a Ferrari. He's also all about making bold statements.

Such bravado has felt out of place with AMD falling six months behind where it hoped to be with Barcelona. The company looks set to release its super chip and then have Intel deflate the product roll out by shipping its own, new 45nm gear one month later.

We're told that Richard has resigned, but you have to wonder about how this move really played out behind closed doors. Perhaps AMD's CEO Hector Ruiz decided that Richard would be the scapegoat for the Barcelona debacle.

Like a scared turtle, AMD has tucked head in shell and refuses to use any form of communication to discuss the Richard situation with us. ®

Update

AMD confirmed Richard's departure in a statement issued late Wednesday.

AMD today announced that Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Henri Richard is leaving the company in September 2007. Mr. Richard departs AMD of his own accord and on completely amicable terms.

"Henri’s primary goal at AMD has been to construct a world-class global sales and marketing organization focused on enduring relationships with major PC and server OEMs around the world. He delivered on that goal,” said AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz. “AMD is fully focused on leveraging the momentum we established during the last five years to achieve even greater levels of success ahead.”

We're told Richard will go to a company "outside of the PC industry."