So someone broke the "news" that Henri was leaving AMD ... Only a few people knew the date (and the fact that he was leaving), so it's ashame that someone would leak this news to the outside without considering the potential reaction from AMD employees, investors, and customers.
Is the fact that Henri is leaving AMD a bad thing? Well, change is always a good thing, and for Henri he will be moving to a very interesting opportunity I'm sure. I don't think he'll miss the cut-throat competition that AMD has faced from Intel. ..and no, there's "no chance in hell" that he'll wind up at Intel - I think he'd rather end up in prison Jack Bauer style. :)
That said, I'm certain that Henri will leave part of his heart at AMD, he loves the company deeply and only wishes well upon them. AMD continues to restructure while trying to build new and compelling products.
I am not going to comment further at this point, but I do wish both AMD and Henri Richard nothing but the best in the future. It's just too bad someone leaked this the way they did. ...and uh... I didn't do it.
Hector Ruiz sent this letter right after the leak:
TO: All Employees
FROM: Hector Ruiz, AMD Chairman and CEO - Dirk Meyer, AMD President and COO
SUBJECT: Henri Richard
We are sad to announce that Henri Richard has made the decision to leave AMD.
When Henri joined AMD in 2002, his primary mission was to establish a world-class global Sales and Marketing organization. It is safe to say that he has accomplished that mission, and he is now ready for a new challenge in his career. While we will certainly miss him, it’s a measure of his success that the organization he leaves behind is fully poised to succeed and capable of maintaining and building the momentum that we have built.
In the last five years, we have increased exponentially our global account footprint, acquiring customers of every caliber, including the top PC and server OEMs around the world. In fact, from Toshiba and Acer to Lenovo, Dell, Sun and HP, we have become a critical strategic partner to our customers and a key component of enterprise solutions and consumer products worldwide.
Commensurate with this growth in our business, and the strength of our corporate and product brands, we have a Sales and Marketing organization that can support and continue to grow our strategic importance to our customers. Nevertheless, we know this was a difficult decision for Henri, especially as we are poised to enjoy the successes of our acquisition of ATI, our upcoming quad-core Barcelona product and our strong product and technology roadmaps.
Henri’s official departure date is still pending, and we will communicate a leadership plan shortly.
Look for a Q&A with Henri to appear on AMD Online in the next day or two. Henri will discuss AMD’s accomplishments over the last five years, and our phenomenal opportunities moving forward.
Please join us in thanking Henri for his leadership and wishing him well in his post-AMD career.
8 blogger comments:
Oh well, maybe it's for the best.
But why would he leave two says allegedly before the Barcelona launch?
Come on Rahul: spill the beans :)
Well, it's not a Barcelona issue, that I can assure you.
I think it's more opportunity came knocking a few too many times, and he found something new and interesting to him.
He's been at AMD since well before the big changes, and helped them "crack" the monopoly. I think he just wants a change.
He didn't help "crack" the "monopoly"; the hard work by AMD's outstanding CPU engineers did that.
"so it's ashame that someone would leak this news to the outside without considering the potential reaction from AMD employees, investors, and customers."
Perhaps it's a shame AMD didn't tell it's employees sooner? These leaks happen all the time and are predictable. It's only 2 weeks before the conjectured date, when was AMD planning to tell its employees?
If this is an amicable departure, what was AMD waiting for? Did they want to wait to get as close to Barcelona launch as possible? One would think if this launch is as important as AMD claims, they would want to get the news of Henri's departure released well before the launch so as not to distract press attention away from such a significant and important launch?
As for including investors in your concerns over the leak - perhaps this is a GOOD thing? Rather than an increasing # of insiders (and partners such as yourself and others) with access to this information earlier and the theorerical ability to trade on this info prior to the rest of the public, at least now all investors have access to the information.
I'm not sure why you would even mention concern over the leak not considering the reaction of investors.
Henri is such an AMD fanboi.
Henri is not going to Apple, contrary to the post on the Inquirer. LOL!
Henri is not going to Apple, contrary to the post on the Inquirer. LOL!
Yeah, haha. I read that at the INQ too. I figured that since the AMD press release said he was pursuing opportunities in a different market segement that it would be something completely different.
Post a Comment