AMD: CEO Dirk Meyer’s departure surprises markets

By announcing his resignation as CEO of AMD, Dirk Meyer surprised the unsuspecting market, leading to the company’s stock price taking a 4% hit.

Without previously giving any sign about his decision, CEO of AMD – the world’s second largest processor manufacturer, Dirk Meyer, announced that he would be resigning from the group. The group’s financial director Thomas Seifert will take over in the interim while the company searches for a new CEO.

Dirk Meyer provided no reason for his resignation, but the decision was made mutually with the group’s board of directors. The conditions surrounding his departure haven’t been made public at this time.

The reason won’t be linked to the group’s revenue or the group’s financial health with Dirk Meyer stabilising AMD’s results and position from Intel’s competition, preferring to now leave the reins to someone now more capable of reinforcing the group’s status.


Has Nvidia demonstrated the way forward?
The general points about AMD’s strategic lines indicate that they will be diversifying after having begun moving away from the computer processor market over the last few months. This will open the way for AMD to have a presence in netbooks, tablets and, in the longer term, the next generation of Smartphone’s with the boundary between the various different categories of electronic products merging.

AMD therefore still has to successfully make the transition that Nvidia has recently undergone, with Nvidia having developed a range of mobile Tegra processors (and now Tegra 2) which have been demonstrated during the CES 2011 show in Las Vegas through numerous Smartphone’s and tablets.

It should be noted that Intel has also entered a creation phase with their range of mobile processors for tablets and Smartphone’s, even though that have admitted that they have arrived a little late – leaving ARM’s architecture to have an almost free ride in these new devices.

Some analysts suggest that the strong representation of Nvidia in electronic gadgets which has given the groups earnings a strong boost, could have lead to the departure of Dirk Meyer. Having said this, markets weren’t really expecting an announcement quite this quickly.

AMD’s share price lost 4% with the announced departure of Dirk Meyer, with the group now needing to look for a new CEO who will be able to guarantee the groups financial stability and implement this new strategy.