A Chip That S Worth A Wait

LEVY: What will be the impact of the Barcelona release? RUIZ: We entered what people call the enterprise space—these really high-end users of servers and workstations—in 2003 with Opteron, and Barcelona is the next step. It’s the same infrastructure, so customers will find it very easy to migrate. It brings a number of advantages in performance per watt, virtualization and other things, so we believe it’s going to strengthen our position in enterprise.

It was originally scheduled to be released months ago. Why so late? We would’ve loved to have been earlier, but it is just a very complex technology. We’re the first company in the history of the world to actually be able to put four very complex processors on a chip, and it just took us longer than we thought. I believe that those people who are disappointed that it’s later than usual are going to be delighted and forget about [the late arrival].

After a few great years AMD has had a couple of rough quarters. How do you bounce back? My ability to get [my team] to stay in focus is made a lot easier by the fact that these are the right people. We have 16,000 employees, and they all can see beyond the valley of the shadow. Considering our last two [unprofitable] quarters, the employee morale is pretty high.

You ’ ve filed a massive suit against Intel charging anticompetitive practices. What do you hope to get from that? It’s incredibly important for us to feel confident that Intel will stop the illegal abuse of its monopoly. We would like to feel that consumers have complete freedom to choose products based on their performance and the value of the product and the quality of the product, and not in any form of coercion or illegal tactic in preventing AMD from successfully entering the marketplace. [Editor’s note: Intel says that its business practices are lawful and fair and is fighting the suit.]

You ’ ve been urging the government to take action on it. Is that at all realistic, considering this present administration ’ s hands-off stance? Any government, whether Republican or Democrat, has the same responsibility of making sure the laws are followed. That’s why we filed the suit.

Will we ever see AMD chips inside Apple computers? Apple is a great company, and we would love to be a supplier to them. We will continue to work hard at earning their business, and I hope someday we can.

You ’ ve pioneered an initiative called 50 x 15 — to help connect half of the world ’ s population to the Internet by 2015. Currently only 15 percent are connected. Is this realistic? I believe so. This not a linear thing, and I think it’s going to accelerate more and more. We’re going to see in the next few years an explosion of incredibly high-quality, low-cost devices, and I’m very optimistic that half of the world will be connected.

You supply chips for the $100 computer for the developing world. Originally your rival Intel was opposing the effort but recently announced its support. How do you view that? I think it’s great. One Laptop Per Child is a philanthropic effort and is designed to help mostly the poor children of the world who don’t have good access to educational technology. Intel’s involvement hopefully will make it easier for those children to access the technology.

Your personal story shows how a door to the United States can bring in talented people. Do you think that the country is losing sight of that, at least when it comes to legislation? Absolutely. It’s very disappointing to see this issue politicized. There are millions of people around the world who could contribute to this country tremendously who would like to come. But we have not allowed yet for that to occur. It’s not a complicated issue. My case is a perfect example, and I’m so thrilled that many years ago an enlightened school district would allow a student like me to come across the border to go to school. That sort of enlightenment doesn’t exist in our government today.

You are a guitar player — what ’ s your signature song? Well, that would be “Me and Bobby McGee”—but with Janis Joplin and Kris Kristofferson.

title: “A Chip That S Worth A Wait” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-15” author: “Richard Calderon”

You’ve filed a massive suit against Intel charging anticompetitive practices. What do you hope to get from that? It’s incredibly important for us to feel confident that Intel will stop the illegal abuse of its monopoly. We would like to feel that consumers have complete freedom to choose products based on their performance and the value of the product and the quality of the product, and not in any form of coercion or illegal tactic in preventing AMD from successfully entering the marketplace. [Editor’s note: Intel says that its business practices are lawful and fair and is fighting the suit.]

You’ve been urging the government to take action on it. Is that at all realistic, considering this present administration’s hands-off stance? Any government, whether Republican or Democrat, has the same responsibility of making sure the laws are followed. That’s why we filed the suit.

You’ve pioneered an initiative called 50 x 15—to help connect half of the world’s population to the Internet by 2015. Currently only 15 percent are connected. Is this realistic? I believe so. This not a linear thing, and I think it’s going to accelerate more and more. We’re going to see in the next few years an explosion of incredibly high-quality, low-cost devices, and I’m very optimistic that half of the world will be connected.

You are a guitar player—what’s your signature song? Well, that would be “Me and Bobby McGee”—but with Janis Joplin and Kris Kristofferson.