July 18, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- After the seventh consecutive quarterly loss at hardware vendor and chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (amd.com), Hector Ruiz has stepped down from his role as CEO.
Level 1 PCI DSS Certified Service Provider! DataPipe delivers the best network & support; top tier data centers; New York metro, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai. DataPipe - Personal Touch, Global Reach.
According to reports on Thursday, Ruiz, the second person to lead AMD after the company's founder Jerry Sanders, will be replaced as CEO by AMD's current president and chief operating officer, Dirk Meyer, an engineer and chip designer who has been helping Ruiz run the company since 2006.
Meyer previously led AMD's microprocessor division, the company's primary business unit and was involved in the design of AMD's Opteron server chip.
Ruiz will remain on AMD's board of directors, where he will serve as executive chairman.
"I'm not a man of many regrets," Ruiz said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We have a tremendous, talented group of people at this company, and we've gotten AMD to be a true contender. But being a contender and actually winning, we're not there yet. This is the perfect time to pass the baton to someone like Dirk."
Meyer says he will focus on execution and reaching and sustaining profitability in his new job while Ruiz plans to keep working on AMD's asset-light manufacturing strategy. AMD also said it plans to use new partnerships to reduce manufacturing costs.
Despite reports that AMD has lost approximately $6.3 billion in just more than six years with Ruiz as CEO, he is still seen as an instrumental player in elevating AMD to become a more competitive rival to Intel, according to AP.
But ultimately, Ruiz is blamed for AMD's financial distress due to losses stemming from a poorly-timed $5.4 billion acquisition of ATI Technologies in 2006 and aggressive competition from Intel.
Perhaps indicative of how difficult things have gotten for AMD lately, the Globe and Mail reports that the chip maker is "dumping the graphics chips business for handhelds and digital TV processors, one of the most promising businesses it acquired through ATI."
For the second quarter, AMD reported a loss was $1.19 billion or $1.96 a share, compared with a year-ago loss of $600-million or $1.09. Revenue rose to $1.35-billion from $1.31-billion a year ago.
AMD's results come two days after Intel posted a 25 percent gain in net profit as it extended gains in the notebook personal computer market.
AMD said that, while it was disappointed with its financial results, it expects third-quarter revenue to increase in line with typical seasonal trends with the average seasonal increase standing between eight and 10 percent.
