14 DAY TRIAL // The outing of Dirk Meyer from AMD's CEO position was, without a doubt, one of the most shocking moves of early 2011, leaving the whole world wondering just who'll have the skills to take the world's second most important chip manufacturer to a whole new level, as the company's board demands. However, as HotHardware reports, it seems that AMD's executives might have a rather tough job ahead of them, because finding a seasoned top manager with extensive experience in the semiconductor and CPUs market is not exactly easy.
There are a few names that the aforementioned report nominates, such as Pat Gelsinger (currently with EMC, but with a very long experience at Intel), Anand Chandrasekher (22 years at Intel, currently head of the company's Ultra Mobility Group), and Craig Barratt (current CEO of Atheros).
It's also quite interesting to note that there are also some rumors going around that AMD's board might actually consider asking company 'founding father' and former CEO Jerry Sanders to come back to the company's top spot.
And while AMD's founder has played a pivotal role in taking the company where it is today, the age issue (Jerry Sanders is 75) might be quite a bit of a problem, so this is a piece of info you should really take with a grain of salt.
Of course, it's also possible that the person that ultimately gets nominated for the job has no direct ties to the CPU and semiconductor market, but simply has the vision and marketing skills required to drive the company into a whole new, profitable direction.
Anyway, it's quite clear that, whoever the company ultimately opts for, the respective executive will certainly have a tough time ahead, not only because the market is changing at an ever-increasing pace as we speak, but also because any possible candidate will think twice before accepting the position, given the way things went with Dirk Meyer's outing.