How Many By When For How Much? . . .

Next Thursday, AMD will have its analyst meeting in New York.

It’s supposed to take hours, but they could do it, and do it well, in ten minutes flat.

How?

All they have to do is the AMD equivalent of these two Intel slides (both slides coming from PCWatch Japan):

and

What would AMD versions of these slides do? They would tell us when AMD planned on introducing new products, what they would be, how many of what, old and new products, they planned to make each quarter, and what they planned to charge for them. AMD certainly makes such plans.

This would give analysts and investors and the rest of us a good idea as to whether or not this company can turn it around next year or not.

While such roadmaps obviously shouldn’t be treated as being etched in stone, they would establish some kind of baseline on which to judge and hold accountable the company and the people running it.

If AMD is going to approach making a profit anytime soon, they’re going to have to ramp K10 quickly. These two charts would tell us if the company has any intention to do so.

Towards the end of the year, people are hoping that 45nm chips will get AMD competitive again. Again, these charts will give us a clue as to whether that’s realistic or not.

I’m sure the AMD people would scream bloody murder at this, but why?

The main excuse would be “We couldn’t do this for competitive reasons.” Well, gee, that didn’t stop Intel from putting it out, now did it, and it doesn’t stop you from saying when products are coming out, now does it?

The real reason, of course, would be, “We couldn’t do this for competitive reasons because we would look so uncompetitive if we put out something we’d be held accountable for.”

Underlying that real reason is, “We really don’t know what’s going to happen that far ahead, especially for 45nm.”

I’m sure they’d come up with other reasons, but they would hold no more water than the first.

So why should AMD do this, even if it makes them look bad? Because beggars can’t be choosers.

Over the last year, AMD has burned its reputation and credibility as fast as its cash. The events of the last few weeks are bringing matters to a head. People just don’t believe this company and its spokespersons any more, especially in the financial sector, and AMD is going to need more external money sometime in 2008 for necessary capital improvements.

The old “Don’t worry, be happy” shtick isn’t going to work anymore. When Mr. Ruiz was in India, somebody asked him about the stock price and he said something like, “The market is very nervous now.” Well, the AMD market is more than nervous, and Hector and Company are the reasons why.

At this point, if AMD keeps up the same old act, they’re just going to BS their way to bankruptcy.

It would be far better for AMD to get all the bad news out of the way, get rid of Hector (I think that’s inevitable now after Barcelona), put Dirk Meyer in, and let him speak honestly and bluntly about the company’s prospects for the year ahead, now and from this point on.

That will probably result in a big initial hit from the market, but after that, AMD will have a far better chance to earn back some faith in the company and survive in the long-run. Yes, the financial situation is bad, but the loss of faith in the company and its leaders is even worse.

Otherwise, this company is going to slowly BS itself to death.

Ed