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COPYRIGHT 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is riding high, maintaining the strong momentum it built up last year. In addition to rolling out its first 64-bit processors and scoring major OEM customer deals in 2003, the Sunnyvale, Calif., chip maker refurbished its memory business and made a couple of key partnerships.
The moves helped AMD string together its first two consecutive profitable quarters--fourth quarter 2003 and first quarter 2004--in several years. Company chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz last week sat down with Michael R. Zimmerman, executive editor of news, and Jeffrey Burt, senior editor, in New York to discuss these and other issues.
Opteron was released a year ago and got off to a tough start. Was there a single point during the year when you realized, "A-ha, now we're going to get traction with this"?
Was there a trigger? Was there an "a-ha"? I would have to say that it was when I went around--this is about a year ago--I went around talking to a lot of customers, the actual users of this product, and wanted to know how they'd feel about an AMD-based product.
Part of the crowd treated me with politeness. But at the same time there was some truth, and what I was learning was that they were all very excited about what they thought an extension to the X86 architecture can do. And they were very much looking forward to evaluating it.
There's a difference in how you say things, like, 'Yeah, sure, we'll be glad to take a look at it,' as opposed to, 'We really think this could make a big difference.' And, 'We're anxious to see it.' And when...
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