“Advanced Micro Devices Inc plans to sell and lease back its Austin, Texas campus to raise cash and fund its chipmaking business as it diversifies beyond the troubled PC industry into new markets,” Noel Randewich reports for Reuters.
“AMD expects to sell the 58-acre site for between $150 million and $200 million and close a deal in the second quarter, company spokesman Drew Prairie told Reuters on Tuesday,” Randewich reports. “The chipmaker’s move to sell its campus, reported earlier by the Austin American-Statesman, comes as it and larger rival Intel Corp struggle with slowing personal computer sales.”
Randewich reports, “AMD’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, California and a building near Toronto were sold and leased back in the past, Prairie said. The growing popularity of Apple’s iPad and other tablets have sapped demand for PCs, and with economic growth slowing in China and struggling in Europe and the United States, global shipments are expected to decline slightly this year, the first annual drop since 2001.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Beleaguered.
Also of interest, Apple currently generates more revenue than AMD hopes to gain from the sale of their 58-acre Austin, Texas campus every eight hours*.
*Not a typo. Three times daily. Every single day.
Related articles:
Another AMD engineer – a graphics and system-on-a-chip expert – goes to Apple – July 20, 2012
GLOBALFOUNDRIES marks third anniversary by achieving full independence from AMD – March 5, 2012
AMD axes 10% of global workforce – November 3, 2011
Who would want the campus?
People in the tech media keep attributing slow PC sales to the iPad. This assumption of correlation is inaccurate. People are not buying iPads in lieu of personal computers. If anything I would credit the PC industry for cannibalizing itself.
Many people are still using computers from 2006 on up. About the time the Core 2 Duo arrived on the scene. I have clients that have the 27 inch iMacs that run just fine as far as they are concerned. They see no urgent or pressing need to move on. Same with PC clients. Those machines hit a sweet spot in speed.
People who do mostly Microsoft Word all day long or input into databases just aren’t yearning for new computers. Couple this with the shift to the cloud (both external and internal) and the need is further reduced.
Gaming is largely console based for the general public and so on.
I bought the iPad primarily as a data consumption device. As soon as the retina MacBook Pro was out, I bought that also. The iPad didn’t make any difference. For me the new MacBook Pro’s speed and Retina display sold it.
I didn’t skip the MacBook because I have an iPad, that’s silly. Though I don’t often take my MacBook Pro to bed anymore.
Now couple this with the huge uncertainty about the economy from an enterprise standpoint and of course people aren’t going out to drop millions on upgrading PCs that work ok. Probably opting to buy out their leases.
Even I look at those shiny new iMacs and think I’d really like one, but my 3.4Ghz Intel Core i7 27″ says I don’t need one, and I probably won’t need one for a while to come. Nothing to do with iPads.
I agree on every point and actually ended up giving my iPad to my grandkids and getting a MacBook Pro for field work AND my office. The iPad is great but it just couldn’t do what the notebook could.
I also have a 27″ iMac at home that I am seriously thinking about selling and getting a monitor and a Thunderbolt interface (can’t justify Apple’s monitor) and just using the MacBook Pro for work and play. It is that fast! (mid 2012 13″)
And a notebook can’t do what an iPad can do. For instance, I read books on an iPad. If you try to read a book on a notebook computer you have to hold it like an accordion, with a useless out-of-date keyboard sticking out the side. And, by the way, I write books on my IPad with my Bluetooth keyboard. I’m glad you gave your grandkids your iPad because they live in the 21st century.
Whoa there, Tonto.
The iPad was also for their mother to use in college with iWork.
And she also has a keyboard too.
My point was to Theo that the iPad wasn’t the only thing killing PCs, as evidence that I still needed one even with an iPad.
They are different tools for different needs and some that overlap. I prefer books, but I loaded several on the iPad for the kids.
BTW, when we all go on vacation, the kids use it on the drive, I use it in the evenings.
I also gave an iPad to my youngest son and an original iPad to an autistic step-grandchild (it is his constant companion).
Next I hope to get an iPad Mini for my Mother who lugs around a 15″ Dell craptop just for email, news and stock quotes.
So, do you think Apple needs to move the Mac to Apple’s custom ARM based chips to advance the Mac to the point where people need to upgrade again?
Regarding: “People in the tech media keep attributing slow PC sales to the iPad. This assumption of correlation is inaccurate. People are not buying iPads in lieu of personal computers.”
There may not be material PC cannibalization directly but indirectly by mobile devices. People are using their smart phones and tablets more and more for things like email, web, etc., functions which were previously done on their PCs. For many the PC has become less important in their computing lives and there is not as much urgency in upgrading it as in the past. Therefore a material amount of PC cannibalization is derived from longer upgrade cycles where fewer and fewer PCs are sold over a given amount of time.
I think too much is focused on Ipads. More than Ipads smartphones “have” supplanted a lot of consumers’ needs for Email, Facebook, and twitter. PC’s rode many of those services early on. Now those services work in a more “personal” way for people with smartphones and Tablets (Ipads). Steve J said it best. PC’s are now “trucks”.
Hey, We kinda need AMD to hang in there MDN.
Intel has much better chips, but I would sure hate to see AMD go away, as they are the main force right now that keeps Intel chips’ prices honest. Maybe someday Apple will have enough developed in ARM platforms to run a decently powered OSX setup.
… and Nvidia…
Don’t have to worry about AMD keeping Intel chip prices honest. ARM will take care of that. And Apple’s custom chip designs.
I hate to see anyone lose their job. AMD is a good company. And I agree with the competition comment. Without competition, Intel will do as they wish. A lot of good very smart people work at AMD. Never make fun of people who are losing their jobs. That’s just silly fucking shit that fanboys do.
Go back to your porno sites and keep your filthy language to yourself.
Or you could go back to your AOL family-friendly chat rooms and let grown-ups speak in public where grown-up language can be constitutionally used in whatever emphatic, transgressive, ridiculous, or offensive way a grown-up might choose to use. The world isn’t sanitized for your pleasure.
I found an old AOL disk the other day… It had this guy’s face on it.
I then proceeded to piss all over it… It was pretty sanitized if you ask me.
Try to see how far that foul language would get you in a professional setting. The great unwashed of the world can post too but can aspire to use good clean descriptive language.
Wow…Intolerant much, 3I3c7ro?
“Would” get me (or any other post authors) in a professional setting? I’m willing to bet I’ve more letters (read “degrees” since you seem to have a problem making inferences) after my name than you. As a tenured English professor (among other professional titles I hold), I was not only defending another’s ADULT choice of vocabulary but attacking your smug sense of self-superiority (further evidenced by your description of others whose language usage you don’t appreciate as “unwashed masses” and the implication that “clean language” is inherently “good.”
Realize a public forum is more analogous to a playground than the idealized “professional setting” you want it to be and feel free, as is your right, to feel superior to others but when you make your narrow-minded prejudices known don’t expect the majority of people, washed or unwashed, to share in your grandiose self-image as morally superior because you undercut that projection with every post.
Wow! So much education and so little understanding. Just because I ask people to refrain from using rough language and to aspire to use more cleanly expressive language, you paint me as someone who thinks that I am morally superior.
We can all strive to be better in every aspect of our lives. Apple Inc has done this for years and it has done wonders for itself and the world in general.
“Go back to your porno sites and keep your filth to yourself” is not “asking someone” nor is it polite thus you were in no way helping better the discourse on this forum. You threw down the gantlet and are now vacillating or worse yet trying to recontextualize your earlier comments to portray yourself as unfairly misunderstood.
I quoted your words before that imply your attitudes so perhaps you’d reflect on yourself before casting stones next time. Apparently you didn’t, so enjoy your new-found “magnanimity.”
Damn! And I didn’t even call him a silly fucking fanboy.
I have to say that I enjoy your writing style and use of language. Even though I am being called out for telling someone who writes using words not usually mentioned in polite company, I can admire your prose. I wish there were more like you on this site.
There is a boatload of buyer’s remorse among those who invested in snake oil sold by Gates & Ballmer Enterprises.