Lessons from the difficult birth of the Spider platform

jmke · 27th November 2007, 16:47

But AMD's path to the Spider platform launch could have—and should have—been a much smoother one than it was, and it would have worked out better for all parties involved. AMD would have avoided communicating the messages it did to us and, by proxy, to the public. Among them: "we're not confident in our products," "we're not a particularly well-run organization," and "our chipset's south bridge is probably broken." We would have been able to sleep more, worry less, and provide fuller coverage to our readers. And our readers would have been able to make better-informed decisions about AMD's products on day one, understanding their best merits in the context of stable release hardware, including Phenom processors with working Cool'n'Quiet power-saving mechanisms.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13677

28th November 2007, 01:47

I rather liked Anand's little snippet here, given in their Phenom article, in which Anand basically mirrors The Tech Report's sentiments.

Quote:

An AMD rep, familiar with the Tahoe trip, asked me, somewhat surprised, "what, Intel doesn't work like this?".

28th November 2007, 17:26

I kinda lost the overview on this issue.

Am I right that:

AMD = fancy trips, powerpoint warriors and almost no review samples

Intel, no trips, moderate Powerpoint use, let the review samples do the talking

Of course, one could use the number of powerpoint slides as an indicator how much a product will suck =P

How was it when Intel had their crappy Prescott CPUs? Were they acting like AMD?

jmke · 28th November 2007, 18:06

yep, lots of earlier A64 numbers, a lot of P4 slides

28th November 2007, 23:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rutar

How was it when Intel had their crappy Prescott CPUs? Were they acting like AMD?

No, they usually didn't. The article answered your question anyway, last paragraph:

Quote:

Things may be tough for a while, but AMD could learn a thing or two from how Intel handled its rough times. Even in the darkest days of the Prescott fiasco, Intel supplied reviewers with new product samples regularly. The grace and class with which Intel handled itself cultivated goodwill with PC enthusiasts, and that paid off when the time came for Intel to recover its competitiveness with Core 2 Duo. Things may be rather difficult for AMD for a period. The company would do well to handle its struggles with similar grace and class.

28th November 2007, 23:57

yes, but what about powerpoint wars?

29th November 2007, 06:01

Intel has always been heavy on the powerpoints... probably have an entire marketing devision to focus on them.

Sidney · 29th November 2007, 06:13

Try going to a meeting without powerpoint

30th November 2007, 13:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sidney

Try going to a meeting without powerpoint

Or a class... only Professors that don't use PPT are those that also don't use any kind of computer or the online college website for their classes.

30th November 2007, 13:28

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/we...rtner=USERLAND

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea...worth.ibm.html

"[FONT=times new roman, times, serif]Gerstner recognized that all this pointless ceremony was crippling IBM. One of the first things he did was to convene his top 20 executives and tell them all to write a short paper, with no visuals, answering these questions: What is your business? Who are your customers? What is your marketplace? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Who are your main competitors? He told them to get it done in two weeks, and that he would meet with each of them one-on-one shortly afterward to discuss it. [/FONT] [FONT=times new roman, times, serif]That may sound pretty reasonable to an outsider. At IBM, it was revolutionary. "People weren't used to writing in sentences," recalls Jim McGroddy. When he met with Gerstner, "it was just the two of us standing at a table. No projector." The meeting went well; McGroddy convinced the new boss that he was willing to help the company change. Others, however, tried to bring out the foils, and "Gerstner jumped all over them," says McGroddy. According to IBM lore, Gerstner actually walked up to the projector at one meeting, turned it off, and told the exec, "If you can't explain it to me in your own words, you don't understand it." Before long the foils were gone. With them went all the old rituals that had made meetings such a waste of time."[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman, times, serif]it is very close to the "write articles, not blogs" text
[/FONT]

27th November 2007, 16:47	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,010	Lessons from the difficult birth of the Spider platform But AMD's path to the Spider platform launch could have—and should have—been a much smoother one than it was, and it would have worked out better for all parties involved. AMD would have avoided communicating the messages it did to us and, by proxy, to the public. Among them: "we're not confident in our products," "we're not a particularly well-run organization," and "our chipset's south bridge is probably broken." We would have been able to sleep more, worry less, and provide fuller coverage to our readers. And our readers would have been able to make better-informed decisions about AMD's products on day one, understanding their best merits in the context of stable release hardware, including Phenom processors with working Cool'n'Quiet power-saving mechanisms. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13677 __________________

28th November 2007, 18:06	#4
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,010	yep, lots of earlier A64 numbers, a lot of P4 slides __________________

29th November 2007, 06:13	#8
Sidney Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 15,738	Try going to a meeting without powerpoint __________________ lazyman Opteron 165 (2) @2.85 1.42 vcore AMD Stock HSF + Chill Vent II

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Atom D510 Processor and Pine Trail Platform	jmke	WebNews	0	14th January 2010 22:46
AMD Offers Glimpse of the Datacenter’s Future with Game-changing Server Platform Road	jmke	WebNews	0	22nd April 2009 22:26
AMD Delivers Groundbreaking Platform for Ultrathin Notebooks	jmke	WebNews	0	6th January 2009 14:36
AMD Phenom II, Dragon Platform, and Stream Technology	jmke	WebNews	0	22nd November 2008 15:43
AMD Spider Platform 9950 Black CPU Review	jmke	WebNews	0	29th August 2008 11:43
Benchmarking the AMD Spider Platform	Sidney	WebNews	0	17th January 2008 03:04
MAINGEAR™ Launches Next Generation AMD© Spider Platform With Quad-Core Phenom Proc	jmke	WebNews	0	20th November 2007 12:37
AMD Spider Platform Coverage	jmke	WebNews	0	19th November 2007 11:20
ATI chairman optimistic about new Pentium 4 platform	jmke	WebNews	0	15th June 2004 10:42
VIA Embedded Platform Division	jmke	WebNews	0	6th January 2004 10:53

28th November 2007, 17:26	#3
Rutar Posts: n/a	I kinda lost the overview on this issue. Am I right that: AMD = fancy trips, powerpoint warriors and almost no review samples Intel, no trips, moderate Powerpoint use, let the review samples do the talking Of course, one could use the number of powerpoint slides as an indicator how much a product will suck =P How was it when Intel had their crappy Prescott CPUs? Were they acting like AMD?

28th November 2007, 23:57	#6
Rutar Posts: n/a	yes, but what about powerpoint wars?

29th November 2007, 06:01	#7
Kougar Posts: n/a	Intel has always been heavy on the powerpoints... probably have an entire marketing devision to focus on them.

30th November 2007, 13:28	#10
Rutar Posts: n/a	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/we...rtner=USERLAND http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea...worth.ibm.html "[FONT=times new roman, times, serif]Gerstner recognized that all this pointless ceremony was crippling IBM. One of the first things he did was to convene his top 20 executives and tell them all to write a short paper, with no visuals, answering these questions: What is your business? Who are your customers? What is your marketplace? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Who are your main competitors? He told them to get it done in two weeks, and that he would meet with each of them one-on-one shortly afterward to discuss it. [/FONT] [FONT=times new roman, times, serif]That may sound pretty reasonable to an outsider. At IBM, it was revolutionary. "People weren't used to writing in sentences," recalls Jim McGroddy. When he met with Gerstner, "it was just the two of us standing at a table. No projector." The meeting went well; McGroddy convinced the new boss that he was willing to help the company change. Others, however, tried to bring out the foils, and "Gerstner jumped all over them," says McGroddy. According to IBM lore, Gerstner actually walked up to the projector at one meeting, turned it off, and told the exec, "If you can't explain it to me in your own words, you don't understand it." Before long the foils were gone. With them went all the old rituals that had made meetings such a waste of time."[/FONT] [FONT=times new roman, times, serif]it is very close to the "write articles, not blogs" text [/FONT]