AMD CEO Denies Smartphone Plans, Slates Tablet Attack for 2012

[god_43]

AMD interim chief executive officer Thomas Seifert said Wednesday night that the company has no plans to enter the smartphone space at the present time, and the company was not developing a baseband chip.

And if AMD has a tablet plan in place it won't be until 2012, Seifert added.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380495,00.asp


looks like the same as before Meyers was booted? but notice how he said that they have new teams to address new avenues?

[Johnny87au]

Well this sucks, thought by now everyone would be investing in mobile/tablets ><

[Serpentarius]

Branching out is an investment risk ... it's even higher risk if venturing to a new field

[EniGmA1987]

AMD said a baseband chip, not that there couldnt be a really low power general processing chip that could be used in a phone or tablet.

[zalbard]

I still don't believe in tablets...
I really don't understand what AMD is doing. Their actions don't seem thought through.

[freeloader]

Netbooks were all the rage just two years ago, now where are they? That's right, replaced pretty much with tablets. Something new will come along in a few years and replace tablets and AMD will have missed that gravy train as well. They should focus on what they know and stick to it.

[flippin_waffles]

I bet tablets will be a quickly fading fad. They aren't naturally comfortable, you can't 'relax' with one as easy as you can with a laptop because there's too much hand movement compared to a trackpad on a laptop, or at least that was my experience. People want to be lazier, not have to work a little harder than they would otherwise have to.

[Manicdan]

I bet tablets will be a quickly fading fad. They aren't naturally comfortable, you can't 'relax' with one as easy as you can with a laptop because there's too much hand movement compared to a trackpad on a laptop, or at least that was my experience. People want to be lazier, not have to work a little harder than they would otherwise have to.

i like the dell one with a flip screen, its a laptop when you need it, and its a tablet when you need it. but that does come at a cost im sure, either in a much higher weight for a tablet, or a much higher price than other tablets

but basically netbooks use to do almost nothing, are now up there with notebooks, and tablets have filled in the gap between cellphones and netbooks. and i think its a failure to start in the middle. let the cellphone chips evolve into enough power for a tablet, or let the netbook chips shrink into enough efficiency for a tablet. but starting in the middle will just give you overlapping products.

[haylui]

I guess after tablet, the market will be focusing to laptop again; but of course, probably the future laptops could offer comparable computational power to desktop and much longer lasting battery life than present laptop in the market.

[SKYMTL]

I'm using a tablet at work these days and I can promise you, this isn't a fad. IMO, there is no better device for certain lines of work when it comes to quick sketching, on-the-fly presentation and note-taking.

There is a saying "sometime it's best not to say anything at all" and I think this applies here as AMD has demonstrated how behind the curve they have been for the last several years. They sold their handset division to Qualcomm, effectively stopping development on the Imageon line. Meanwhile, Xilleon was sold off to Broadcom which put AMD behind the nine ball in the rapidly emerging "smart TV" market.

To see that AMD still lacks a cohesive plan to get into a market that was quickly emerging three years ago is seriously disturbing.

[bamtan2]

I bet tablets will be a quickly fading fad. They aren't naturally comfortable

They are the book formfactor. You're out of your mind.

[generics_user]

I'm using a tablet at work these days and I can promise you, this isn't a fad. IMO, there is no better device for certain lines of work when it comes to quick sketching, on-the-fly presentation and note-taking.

There is a saying "sometime it's best not to say anything at all" and I think this applies here as AMD has demonstrated how behind the curve they have been for the last several years. They sold their handset division to Qualcomm, effectively stopping development on the Imageon line. Meanwhile, Xilleon was sold off to Broadcom which put AMD behind the nine ball in the rapidly emerging "smart TV" market.

To see that AMD still lacks a cohesive plan to get into a market that was quickly emerging three years ago is seriously disturbing.

yup, especially imageon was quite successful around 2006 and they sold less than 80m

biggest mistake they did since 2006

[flippin_waffles]

I'm using a tablet at work these days and I can promise you, this isn't a fad. IMO, there is no better device for certain lines of work when it comes to quick sketching, on-the-fly presentation and note-taking.

There is a saying "sometime it's best not to say anything at all" and I think this applies here as AMD has demonstrated how behind the curve they have been for the last several years. They sold their handset division to Qualcomm, effectively stopping development on the Imageon line. Meanwhile, Xilleon was sold off to Broadcom which put AMD behind the nine ball in the rapidly emerging "smart TV" market.

To see that AMD still lacks a cohesive plan to get into a market that was quickly emerging three years ago is seriously disturbing.

They are the book formfactor. You're out of your mind.

IMO, the tablet market is a lot like the 3D market. Once the novelty wears off, interest will start to fall.

The entire landscape can look completely different in 6 months. Even if it doesn't, there sure won't be enough room in that relatively small market for 4 or 5 players fighting for thin margins.


[edit]

However, I do agree that if AMD had not sold off Imageon and Xilleon, they may very well have owned that market right now. I wonder if Dirk was on the side of selling of those bits and had to take one for the team for not being able to predict 2 years into the future in a world that changes overnight.

[flippin_waffles]

Here's a pretty revealing article, with some performance and power indications for Llano. For what they're testing, it outperforms galloping girdie and uses 10-20W less.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/02/.../?mod=yahoo_hs

[cegras]

I'm using a tablet at work these days and I can promise you, this isn't a fad. IMO, there is no better device for certain lines of work when it comes to quick sketching, on-the-fly presentation and note-taking.

There is a saying "sometime it's best not to say anything at all" and I think this applies here as AMD has demonstrated how behind the curve they have been for the last several years. They sold their handset division to Qualcomm, effectively stopping development on the Imageon line. Meanwhile, Xilleon was sold off to Broadcom which put AMD behind the nine ball in the rapidly emerging "smart TV" market.

To see that AMD still lacks a cohesive plan to get into a market that was quickly emerging three years ago is seriously disturbing.

ATI definitely had it right then. Yay Canada!

[FischOderAal]

I think tablets are here to stay. Not to replace the PC/Laptop altogether but as an additional device for convenient media consumption.

[flippin_waffles]

I think tablets are here to stay. Not to replace the PC/Laptop altogether but as an additional device for convenient media consumption.

I agree, for media consumption tablets will probably do really well. At any rate, it's not like AMD is missing out on a ground floor opportunity here no matter what happens with tablets, and they are pretty well positioned either way. If tablets take off, they should have the x86 tablet market sewn up, especially when they get to 28nm next year.

[BlueAqua]

Tablets are around to stay. They can be used for so many things, just a portable screen with a computer built in, sounds pretty good to me. I never cared for netbooks, just seemed like a cheap laptop, but there are a lot of high quality tablets that look interesting.

I still don't see myself using a tablet, but can see many good uses for them.

[Johnny87au]

im in love with my ipad!!

[445533]

Tablets are awesome. The iPad is a great first try. Hopefully Android 3.0 brings in what the iPad is missing: USB support, a real file system and a real file manager and being able to use the device WITHOUT iTunes!!!

[Johnny87au]

Tablets are awesome. The iPad is a great first try. Hopefully Android 3.0 brings in what the iPad is missing: USB support, a real file system and a real file manager and being able to use the device WITHOUT iTunes!!!

new iPad is gonna be USD ready also

[saaya]

I bet tablets will be a quickly fading fad. They aren't naturally comfortable, you can't 'relax' with one as easy as you can with a laptop because there's too much hand movement compared to a trackpad on a laptop, or at least that was my experience. People want to be lazier, not have to work a little harder than they would otherwise have to.

I think in 2012 we will see an amazing new fad, tablets... WITH KEYBOARDS!!!!


Amd has new teams? Maybe dedicated at finding somebody to buy the company? Lol

[alpha0ne]

I am starting to hope some company (ANY company) really does buy AMD so they can then sack the whole AMD 'management' (mis) team

Not that I profess to being an expert in anything but jeeez even most tech heads who know a lot more than I would agree that AMD have lost their way

[god_43]

I am starting to hope some company (ANY company) really does buy AMD so they can then sack the whole AMD 'management' (mis) team

Not that I profess to being an expert in anything but jeeez even most tech heads who know a lot more than I would agree that AMD have lost their way

well that is kind of where the board was going with meyers, but they cant do anything now other than redirect resources to fill these markets in the future.

[Manicdan]

I think in 2012 we will see an amazing new fad, tablets... WITH KEYBOARDS!!!!

like a Kindle?!?! lol