Dirk Meyer Becomes New CEO of AMD

Advanced Micro Devices, the world’s second largest maker of x86 central processing units, on Thursday announced that its chief executive officer Hector Ruiz has stepped down from his top executive position and that the board of directors elected president and chief operating officer Dirk Meyer to become the next CEO of AMD. Mr. Ruiz will continue to serve as the executive chairman of the board.

Refer to:
AMD News Room
X-Bit Labs

Meyer, 46, is a former AMD star engineering manager who for the past two years was groomed to succeed chief executive Hector Ruiz.

Meyer said he sees a clear, logical path to recovery for AMD. He was hinting that AMD doesn't always need to overwhelm rival Intel Corp. with better performing chips to succeed in the marketplace and make money. Turning out innovative chips with competitive performance in a predictable, timely manner will be good enough much of the time.

Meyer is considered more of a hands-on, get-the-job done type. Co-workers call him tough and blunt, driven and decisive, and with great clarity in his vision for the company.

Meyer, who earned an engineering degree at the University of Illinois, joined AMD in 1995. He led the Athlon processor project that was completed in 1999. He rose to general manager of AMD's computer chip business, helping to guide the development of the company's historic 64-bit Opteron chip, which was introduced in 2003. He was named president and chief operating officer in 2006.

Despite almost two years of losses, Meyer said AMD is on the verge of a rebound. And Meyer says AMD is just months away from a major restructuring that will spin off its manufacturing operations into a separate company, with new ownership.

Without the expensive manufacturing operations, AMD can concentrate on designing, marketing and selling chips that compete effectively against Intel, the largest company in the semiconductor industry, and Nvidia Corp., the foremost maker of graphics chips.

Meyer signaled that AMD will continue to push its legal and public relations challenge against what it describes as Intel's monopolistic behavior. AMD says that Intel has repeatedly put pressure on computer makers not to use AMD products.

There have been signs of progress on that front. Government regulators in Japan, South Korea and Europe have begun investigations into Intel's competitive practices, and Washington regulators have started to follow suit.

Source : http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/07/19/0719dirk.html