AMD Is Hiring a Sales Chief

After the announced departure of its sales and marketing department Henri Richard, Advanced Micro Devices, better known as AMD, must now look to hire somebody else for the job and that as soon as possible because the day when the Barcelona core processors are hitting the server market is coming closer and without a competent marketing leader, the CPU manufacturing company will face many difficulties.

Hinri Richard said in a public statement that he will soon leave the company and reorient himself to a "different business segment," but did not offer additional details, while the manufacturing company claims that its sales leader leaves on his own accord and on "completely amicable terms". AMD spokesman Eric Deritis who was cited by the news site InformationWeek agrees that the whole business took the entire company by surprise and it was forced to make the announcement sooner than expected because of a leak. "If that leak hadn't occurred, then [the announcement] would have been more of a buttoned-down process," he said. Apart from this, the AMD spokesperson said that the definitive date of departure is not fixed yet and that the former sales and marketing executive will stay a while longer to help with the transition.

The claim that Henri Richard leaves on amicable terms is put under question by a number or market and financial analysts like Steve Kleynhans, who works for the research firm Gartner. "That would sound more reasonable, if they had someone waiting in the wings to take his place," Kleynhans said. "There doesn't seem to be any obvious replacement at this point, and it makes you wonder what triggered the move."

"After 20 years in the PC industry -- and five of the most professionally rewarding years here at AMD -- I have decided to make a move to a different business segment," said the ex-AMD sales executive in his public statement, so the move is not from AMD to another computer manufacturer but to an entire new industry.

Another analyst says that no company wants to lose one of its top executives at such a delicate time, but AMD was always more centered on technology and not on marketing, unlike Intel. "You never like losing a top executive that you don't want to leave, but I don't have any particular reason to believe that this will have some huge negative impact on AMD," said Gordon Haff, analyst for Illuminata.