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Aug 23, 2007 at 11:01 AM |
The San Jose Mercury News got the scoop of the week when it reported that Hector Ruiz had said in an interview with the newspaper that AMD had indeed experienced delays with the tape-out of its native quad-core Barcelona MPU.
Like some others, we had been highlighting that Barcelona was late, but AMD continued to insist that it was on-track due to the use of some very vague release times.
I don't know why they continued this play for so long but it wasn't being bought by anyone, a fact that may have tipped the spinners at AMD to come clean, especially when the launch of Barcelona is now due in September.
The news that Henri Richard is leaving AMD in September will fuel all sorts of rumors as the timing is just awful. However, getting this one out of the way before the launch is probably better for the company, as a departure a month or so later than that could have suggested that Barcelona was not going to be a success, leading to the sales honcho leaving under a cloud.
What disturbs me the most about the Q&A with Hector over at Mercury News was his tone!
He was down-playing the impact Barcelona will have in the server market, noting that Intel has competitive products especially with Penryn on 45nm due later this year.
With the MPU market actually very strong this year and expected to be stronger in 2008, AMD has to gain market share but also make money during a period of robustness. The pressures seem greater than ever on the company to perform and compete properly.
The Mecury News interview can be viewed here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_6663261
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