14 DAY TRIAL // Advanced Micro Devices is munching on naming president and chief operating officer Dirk Meyer to take over as top executive, although Hector Ruiz, the one who actually holds this position said that he does not consider stepping aside for the year to come.
Hector Ruiz clearly stated that the company's top executives will likely elect Dirk Meyer as the next chief executive officer: "We started doing [the succession planning] four years ago and I'm delighted that Dirk is a strong player. When the time comes for me to hand the reins over to him, it's going to be fantastic", Hector Ruiz said.
Ruiz joined the company in early January 2000, immediately after AMD unveiled their Athlon CPU line. Two years later, Ruiz was anointed chief executive officer, shortly before the company launched the Athlon 64 and the Opteron processors, which were to become fierce competition for Intel's CPUs for many years. Ruiz's ascension continued two years later, when he was appointed as chairman of the board (April 2004). Hector Ruiz's coordination helped AMD gain lots of market share (from 18% to about 23%) and become the number one competitor for chipmaker Intel.
It is true that the main technologies that made AMD more than a low-end microprocessor supplier - the HyperTransport, K7 and K8 micro-architectures - were developed under the rule of the previous chief executive and the founder of AMD, Jerry Sanders. Moreover, the post-ATI era made the company run low on finances and lost plenty of revenue coming from CPU, graphics, multimedia and set-top-box sales.
All these have eroded AMD's patience and confidence in the current chairman. Although Ruiz's replacement is not a secret anymore and the actual chief will soon turn 62, Hector Ruiz has no plans to quit or resign. He just managed to declare that he has no other plans for 2008. Regarding his departure from AMD, he said in the interview that "I can't tell you that, but it's not any time soon. Not next year".