By
Antone Gonsalves
12 July 2007 07:26AM
Tags:
former | ati | chief | resigns | amd
Dave Orton, president and chief executive of graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies, is leaving AMD.
Dave Orton, who as president and chief executive of graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies led the company's merger last year with Advanced Micro Devices, said Tuesday he would leave AMD at the end of the month. Orton, who has held the post of executive VP at AMD, was resigning after seeing through the integration of the two companies.
"With his integration work complete and the successful launch of key graphics and chipset products earlier this year, the time was right for Dave to take his personal and professional life in a different direction," Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief operating officer, said in a joint statement with Orton. Orton gave no further details as to why he was leaving.
He said he had "mixed feelings" feelings about leaving, adding: "I am very optimistic about AMD's future." Orton's resignation comes as AMD struggles to recapture the market momentum it had last year against its larger rival Intel. Part of AMD's strategy for combating Intel's resurgence is the release in August of a quad-core microprocessor codenamed Barcelona.
AMD's longer term strategy includes the release in 2009 of a hybrid chip codenamed Fusion that merges x86 and graphics cores. Fusion is a direct result of the merger with ATI. AMD announced a change in the chain of command with Orton's resignation. Adrian Hartog, senior VP and general manager of the consumer electronics group; and Rick Bergman, senior VP and general manager of the graphics products group, would now report to CEO Hector de J. Ruiz.
Due in part to aggressive price-cutting and new products from Intel, AMD for the first quarter ending in March reported a net loss of $611 million as revenues fell 7 percent to US$1.23 billion. The results were an indication that AMD's gains last year against Intel in the PC and server markets were not being repeated this year.