Replies to post #6848 on AMD strictly moderated (AMD)

[wbmw]

Re: What got me annoyed in 2006 after hearing about Turion chips rumored to come out was waiting and waiting and waiting and
waiting. And they're still not here.

That has got to be frustrating. I think AMD has lost a lot of customers by overpromising and underdelivering.

[spaarky]

Elmer wrote:
>Thanks for your kind words but it was actually pretty
> obvious. The real question is why didn't the analysts see
> it as well?
>
> They saw AMD slip every schedule multiple times, just
> like we did. They saw the paper launches. They saw the
> lame taskmanager demo in January then nothing since. Yet:
>
> They still believe Barcelona will be out mid year and ramp.
>
> They still believe Barcelona will be 40% faster than Intel's
> then available Quad core.
>
> They still believe AMD will have 45nm production in 1H'08.

mmoy responded:
The reason was that AMD had executed quite well for a few years and it can be hard to believe that a company doing well for what seems like eternity (3 years probably is to some of these guys) earns a reputation.

IMO, AMD's execution wasn't all that great. I think WBMW has documented some of the misses they had over those years. In the grand scheme they were remaining on top quite easily. But there would have to have been a royal screw up for them to be uncompetitive with the Prescott family. Soft launches, slow ramps, etc. didn't cause high-visibility problems. Now that they're behind, even small missteps are being scrutinized. So being on top and gaining share made it appear as if they were executing quite well, and it was good enough for them to make great strides, but 65nm is an example of poor execution which overlaps the 'golden age' of K8 (process development is a multi-year endeavor).

-=spaark=-