Rumor: Frank Azor to Join AMD as Chief Gaming Officer

[AleksandarK]

According to Wccftech, Frank Azor, a co-founder, vice president and general manager of Alienware, will be joining AMD as Chief Gaming Officer. Starting on the third of July, Frank will be leaving Dell and will officially join AMD, as Wccftech suggests. The announcement from AMD should follow after third of July if that is the case. Frank has worked for Alienware/Dell for almost 25 years in its purpose to bring alien like gaming PCs to the market.

He posted on Alienware community website:

"Family, as you saw in Ray's earlier announcement, I'll be leaving Dell as of July 3 to take on a new challenge.
A little over 21 years ago, I met a couple of lunatics who had an idea they called Alienware. When I met them and learned about the company they were trying to build, I thought to myself, "This would be the coolest job ever." I was right, but none of us ever dreamed the brand would come this far - which is a result of all of you, your hard work and passion... ". You can read it fully here.

These speculations about the move to AMD aren't confirmed yet and the situation is likely to change, so take this with a grain of salt.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[T1beriu]

What?! This is an unconfirmed rumor and you post it as fact. Wtf?

 

[dj-electric]

So lets see Alienware's record so far in the PC gaming industry.

Grotesquely overpriced machines, with bad choice of components and expand-ability, check.
Not being able to use Dell's resources to properly promote and compete in the gaming monitor market against the likes of Acer, BenQ, Asus and AOC, check.
Not being able to make competitive peripherals like mice, keyboards and headsets even to the level of re-branding existing OEMs, check.

I apologize if you have to read this, Mr Azor, but your company and your parent company has not been doing particularly good for this market and its consumers in those years under the Alienware brand.
You have displayed a complete disinterest in trends and user requests, and did not use opportunities to penetrate potential markets in time or at all. Smaller companies were able to gain margins without many efforts thanks to that.

I don't know how much we PC users should be excited about you moving to AMD as someone who should be in touch with us, since we haven't seen you actually do that properly during those years.

 

[FYFI13]

Oh, so now we should expect overpriced AMD products soon?

 

[Zubasa]

Oh, so now we should expect overpriced AMD products soon?

Many would consider the RX5700 as just that.

 

[megamanxtreme]

Grotesquely overpriced machines, with bad choice of components and expand-ability, check.

I begin to wonder, "Have they ever been decently priced, other than a sale or giveaway?"

Wishing Frank the best at AMD, if confirmed. Make us proud.

 

[Manu_PT]

So lets see Alienware's record so far in the PC gaming industry.

Grotesquely overpriced machines, with bad choice of components and expand-ability, check.
Not being able to use Dell's resources to properly promote and compete in the gaming monitor market against the likes of Acer, BenQ, Asus and AOC, check.
Not being able to make competitive peripherals like mice, keyboards and headsets even to the level of re-branding existing OEMs, check.

I apologize if you have to read this, Mr Azor, but your company and your parent company has not been doing particularly good for this market and its consumers in those years under the Alienware brand.
You have displayed a complete disinterest in trends and user requests, and did not use opportunities to penetrate potential markets in time or at all. Smaller companies were able to gain margins without many efforts thanks to that.

I don't know how much we PC users should be excited about you moving to AMD as someone who should be in touch with us, since we haven't seen you actually do that properly during those years.

Not saying you are completly wrong, but isn´t that a bit exaggerated? I tried several alienware products and they were quality. Can give you an example, the AW2518HF is an excellent and popular 240hz monitor with a great price and performance. They also have really good ultra wide models, as good as asus or LG.

 

[Vayra86]

Oh, so now we should expect overpriced AMD products soon?

Great way to Alienate the userbase

 

[Assimilator]

What?! This is an unconfirmed rumor and you post it as fact. Wtf?

Normal day on TPU, sadly.

Great way to Alienate the userbase

Arguably they already did that when the price of X570 boards leaked and all the children started crying about AMD being greedy.

 

[SomeOne99h]

Wishing Frank the best at AMD, if confirmed. Make us proud.

Make gamers great again!

 

[ZoneDymo]

Many would consider the RX5700 as just that.

some fox news tactics there.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

Marketing, marketing, marketing... And more marketing needed.

Any tech company with good marketing will do fine.

 

[Frick]

Marketing, marketing, marketing... And more marketing needed.

Any tech company with good marketing will do fine.

Aye. People (tech people) generally seem to look down on sales people, but for any company they are more or less the most important employees. There’s a good reason why the good ones have obscene paychecks. Engineers and so on are important, but a company can do anything as long as you have good sales people.

 

[dj-electric]

Not saying you are completly wrong, but isn´t that a bit exaggerated? I tried several alienware products and they were quality. Can give you an example, the AW2518HF is an excellent and popular 240hz monitor with a great price and performance. They also have really good ultra wide models, as good as asus or LG.

You'd want to hope that Dell's own brand would be capable of making at lest one decent gaming monitor, that might be a rebrand of another Dell monitor. Thank goodness for at least that.

The problem is that Alienware had the infinity-gauntlet of PC hardware pretty much, being able to make so many great things, but yet they didn't do much at all. That's because of what i mostly assume bad marketing staff. This is where the problem is at with this transfer.