AMD Reports 2015 First Quarter Results

[Dent1]

You have it upside down. Product performance is the thing that allows these other aspects to exist. When you have a good product, marketing and securing contracts is easy. If the product sucks, no amount of marketing can save it.

Then explain why McDonalds is the word's largest fast food franchise despite having a low quality product?

 

[Fluffmeister]

Then explain why McDonalds is the word's largest fast food franchise despite having a low quality product?

Maybe AMD should get into the fast food business then.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Then explain why McDonalds is the word's largest fast food franchise despite having a low quality product?

Well that is an easy question to answer, as someone who comes with a background in the hospitality industry.

Fast food is all about consistency of product. By maintaining consistency of service, product, and environment, consumers know what to expect when they make a choice to go there. McDonalds also listens fairly carefully to its consumer base - rectifies problems fairly quickly (by conglomerate standards) and provides a fairly consistent flow of new products - products often themed for regional tastes

Consistency. Nimble in reacting to their customer base requirements. Innovative (as far as you can be with fast food).

Three attributes not normally associated with AMD.

Maybe AMD should get into the fast food business then.

Oh great! Order a burger and fries, get told that there will be a three year wait for the order, and when it arrives, it turns out to be a couple of chicken nuggets and some time expired sauce. When you complain, the server/ex-CEO points out the menu fine print that says "Menus reflect AMD's current products and timetables and are subject to change without notice"

 

[rruff]

Then explain why McDonalds is the word's largest fast food franchise despite having a low quality product?

McDonald's food tastes good. At least to the people who eat there. They've actually not been doing so well lately now that more people are learning that it's really just decent tasting crap.

The Happy Meals and other stuff isn't just marketing, it's also a product. Call it a "dining experience".

 

[Dent1]

McDonald's food tastes good. At least to the people who eat there.

Taste is subjective. Yes generally speaking it taste adequately good, but so do hundreds of other dinners serving burgers. Yet McDonalds is the market leader worldwide.

There are plenty of premium gourmet burger places with higher quality ingredients, but their annual revenue isn't 0.1% of McDonald's.

They've actually not been doing so well lately now that more people are learning that it's really just decent tasting crap.

This is because their marketing campaign is becoming less effective, because society is becoming more educated about their health and healthier alternatives like Subway are becoming more widely available. We've seen McDonalds create Subway style menus to capture this new health conscious market, its now up to their new marketing campaign to sell the concept.

The Happy Meals and other stuff isn't just marketing, it's also a product. Call it a "dining experience".

Yes the dining experience is part of the service. A service is a product too. All restaurants are in the service industry, yet all restaurants are not market leaders like McDonalds.

Some marketing genius has to sell the concept of the "dining experience" to make it stand out from the rest.


Summary. You can be fast food market leader worldwide with a poor quality but averagely tasty burger and a mediocre dining experience if your marketing can sell the vision. Same goes for most products including processors.

 

[librin.so.1]

It's fascinating how a quickly a discussion on AMD's financial report can turn into a fiery discussion about McDonald's burgers.
Indeed – it only took one forum page to derail that much.

Once again, fascinating!

 

[Dent1]

Oh great! Order a burger and fries, get told that there will be a three year wait for the order, and when it arrives, it turns out to be a couple of chicken nuggets and some time expired sauce. When you complain, the server/ex-CEO points out the menu fine print that says "Menus reflect AMD's current products and timetables and are subject to change without notice"

To be fair 99% of AMD's customers (or Intel customers) don't know about processor time-tables. We are the minority.

They go to PC world and ask for a computer and they leave with a machine the same day.

Very unlikely most customers are upset because their processor has "expired". Because even an expired processor is adequate enough to fulfil their needs.

 

[librin.so.1]

@Dent1, more like "CPU? What is that? Do I have to pay extra for it and do I even need it? Are you trying to rip us off!?"

 

[rruff]

Very unlikely most customers are upset because their processor has "expired". Because even an expired processor is adequate enough to fulfil their needs.

Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that AMD just needs to market their junk better. Geeks have a lot of influence in this. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a good correlation between product perception, reality, and sales. AMD made good products and their sales soared. Then they screwed up and sales dropped. Having *had* good products can let you coast awhile, but not for long.

Anybody who has a few minutes to spare can look up tests on CPUs and GPUs on the internet. Or they can ask someone they know who is "into computers". Or post on a random forum somewhere. The super clueless with no info will still probably talk to someone where they buy the computer, and that person will have some idea.

 

[HumanSmoke]

To be fair 99% of AMD's customers (or Intel customers) don't know about processor time-tables. We are the minority.

I believe we were talking about OEM's - your comment (that I in turn commented upon) was in reply to rruff's point that: "When you have a good product, marketing and securing contracts is easy. If the product sucks, no amount of marketing can save it."
In that context, product timetables and adherence to them is of paramount importance with respect to OEMs. Past history is littered with examples of vendors losing contracts and thus, greater brand visibility and OEM confidence, when products become "no shows" and/or underperform when they do finally materialize.

They go to PC world and ask for a computer and they leave with a machine the same day.

And as a general rule, they will leave with the product that the OEM signed contracts for.

Very unlikely most customers are upset because their processor has "expired". Because even an expired processor is adequate enough to fulfil their needs.

How many major OEMs do you see selling AMD FX processors/900 series chipset systems? They can invariably be had by the public for less than a decent i5/H97, yet which has the largest product range? New product and new feature sets catch OEM contracts (and perf per watt/core in the enterprise sector), and those new contracts lead to the successive generations of OEM products, they ones the consumer has a choice of buying. All things being equal, people would buy what is put in front of them, but that isn't necessarily the case, unless you under the impression that ODM's like Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte have a money maker on their hands releasing barely warmed over revisions of 900 chipset boards for the umpteenth time. If that is indeed the case, its a wonder they stock so few models in relation to the myriad of ATX/EATX/mATX/ITX offerings with Intel chipsets.

 

[Ravenas]

Right now is a great time to buy AMD shares. They are extremely cheap. AMD will release a catalyst product and shares will rise.

 

[Sakurai]

Well, what can you expect. The only reason AMD is allowed to exist, it's due to the demand of competition on the market. If not for the low price (arguably you get what you pay for) of their products, Intel & NVIDIA should have demolished this miserable company for years already.
More cores won't save their CPUs, Mantle had died before it was able to breathe. By no means I'm saying AMD should die, but they dug for themselves a nice big hole in the industry.

 

[librin.so.1]

More cores won't save their CPUs

Depends on the workload. Let's just say "I'd suck c**k for a good 16+++ core desktop CPU".

Mantle had died before it was able to breathe.

'cept it didn't – they "donated" Mantle to Khronos and after just slight modifications it has become Vulkan. Whoop whoop.

 

[64K]

Depends on the workload. Let's just say "I'd suck c**k for a good 16+++ core desktop CPU".

We're maybe only a 4 or 5 years away from moving off of silicon altogether for processors. More cores may be useful for some but it's probably not the solution we need.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...d-to-10nm-will-move-away-from-silicon-at-7nm/

 

[astrix_au]

I'm a bit worried now to upgrade my 2x 290x's for 2x 390x's. If AMD where to go bust which is very likely who is going to update Catalyst, no more driver support... That doesn't sound too good!

 

[librin.so.1]

If AMD where to go bust which is very likely who is going to update Catalyst, no more driver support...

No, it's very unlikely that it'd go bust.
At the very least, not for several more years it won't.
Which, I believe, would be in time for Your GPU update cycle to restart, I believe. Thus, Even if the very unlikely happens and they do, it won't affect Your purchase of R9 390X's.

 

[64K]

I'm a bit worried now to upgrade my 2x 290x's for 2x 390x's. If AMD where to go bust which is very likely who is going to update Catalyst, no more driver support... That doesn't sound too good!

Worst case scenario AMD continues to operate in the red and can't service their debt and can't borrow more and file for bankruptcy protection. That doesn't necessarily mean the end of the line for AMD. It would be up to the bankruptcy judge how to proceed in the interests of AMD and it's creditors. I would think some company would step in and buy AMD cheap if it came down to that but who knows.

We're not at worst case scenario right now imo.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

No, it's very unlikely that it'd go bust.
At the very least, not for several more years it won't.
Which, I believe, would be in time for Your GPU update cycle to restart, I believe. Thus, Even if the very unlikely happens and they do, it won't affect Your purchase of R9 390X's.

Yes, this is what people said about 3dfx, too. I wouldn't count on any more GPU driver support than people got then once the crap hits the fan.

 

[de.das.dude]

can someone translate this into english?

 

[Fourstaff]

can someone translate this into english?

Company still losing great amounts money. No end in sight. Diehard supporters think AMD will come up with a blockbuster product. They have been waiting for many many years.

 

[astrix_au]

When the 390X comes out I'm sure it will be a beast. They might waiting for something like new financial year or something else. They will have a much better chance to turn things around with the next gen of products.

AMD should give up on CPU only CPu's and concentrate on GPU's and APU's.