Rory Read as AMD New CEO

AMD announced that its board of directors has appointed Rory P. Read, 49, President and Chief Executive Officer of AMD. Mr. Read joins AMD from Lenovo Group, where he was most recently President and Chief Operating Officer.

“I’m very pleased to be joining AMD at this important time in its history. AMD is a true innovator and is uniquely positioned to lead the industry forward, delivering the next big thing both within the PC ecosystem and beyond. AMD has strong momentum and the opportunity to continue profitably gaining share based on its highly differentiated products, solid financial foundation, and passionate and committed employees. I’m excited to be joining AMD’s employees as we write the next chapter not just for the company, but for the industry and consumers around the world," said Mr. Read.

While managing Lenovo’s Americas group, Read drove double-digit revenue growth and market share gains, reversing operating losses and delivering consistent profitability. He was promoted to president and COO in 2009, helping to transform Lenovo into the world’s fastest growing major PC manufacturer and achieving its largest worldwide market share ever.

Prior to Lenovo, Read spent 23 years at IBM where he held a broad range of management positions. While at IBM, Read consistently grew revenues while significantly improving the operating profitability for the groups under his management, including IBM’s business consulting services division, global business transformation of IBM global services and business consulting services/Asia Pacific.

Read's arrival means that Thomas Seifert, who served as interim CEO after Dirk Meyer's resignation, has returned to his role as as AMD's Chief Financial Officer. Bruce Clafin has also dropped the "Executive" from his title and is now, once again, AMD's Chairman.

Seagate Cutting Warranty

Seagate has decided to shorten the warranty period for most of its consumer-based hard drives in order to cut costs. The warranty affects only the channel drives that are sold through distributors, which is usually in bulk. Here is the list:

A6-3500 Triple Core Imminent

News circulating about imminent availability of a new model of desktop APU based on Llano silicon, the A6-3500. Like the four other desktop variants of Llano, this processor will drop into a Socket FM1 motherboard and provide both CPU and graphics processing power to the system.

The specs for the A6-3500 almost exactly like the specs for the next model up, the A6-3600. Both run their CPU cores at 2.1GHz and can raise them to 2.4GHz via Turbo Core, both have 444MHz Radeon IGPs with 320 shader ALUs, and both will fit into a 65W TDP envelope. The difference? The A6-3500 has only three cores and 3MB of L2 cache, versus the A6-3600's quad cores and 4MB of L2.

The A6-3500 is priced at $95, about $40 below the fastest desktop Llano, the A8-3850.

AMD Radeon Memory for Systems

No, this is not a joke, AMD has quietly started selling DDR3 system memory under its Radeon brand. AMD's website confirms the product's existence.

AMD says Radeon DDR3 memory is "ideally suited" to the company's CPU and APU, tested to the highest industry standards on AMD platforms to guarantee reliability and performance. Right now, the product line includes 2GB Entertainment modules (rated for operation at 1333MHz with 9-9-9 timings) and 2GB UltraPro Gaming modules (which can hit 1600MHz at 11-11-11). The company is also preparing Enterprise modules. All three modules are apparently designed to operate at their rated speeds with a 1.5V voltage setting—the JEDEC-specified standard for DDR3.