“That era is done. There’s enough processing power on every laptop on the planet today.

there is a clear shift in thinking that appears to be moving away from Intel being the focus to the building threat from ARM chip makers, including Nvidia. Instead of being focused on performance, AMD appears to be looking much more on cost and indirectly join a force that is building up against Intel - and especially against exclusionary marketing moves such as the Ultrabook pitch.

“I think we come in and steal the bacon around the whole thin-and-light movement and capture a significant portion of the opportunity there,” Read said.

Of course, he recognizes that AMD has to change as a whole and traditional weaknesses have to be addressed.

“It can be a very different AMD going forward, but we have a long way to go,” he said. “There’s been a passion for innovation but there needs to be a passion for delivery and a passion for the customers.”

That transformation may be done by 2015, according to Read. Given the executive changes we have seen in recent months, it is somewhat apparent that the old blood of AMD has been flushed out and replaced with a new way of thinking.

“That era is done. There’s enough processing power on every laptop on the planet today."

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Chief Executive Officer Rory Read said his company’s success will hinge on getting products to market more quickly as Qualcomm (QCOM) (QCOM) Inc. and other phone-chip makers move into computing.

Computing is increasingly moving to the cloud -- data centers that supply services over the Internet -- creating a need for chips that are tuned for displaying video and other media and don’t need to crunch large amounts of information, Read said. It’s shifting the competition to a race for chips that contain multiple functions, exactly where phone-chip makers excel, he said.

Qualcomm, Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) (NVDA) and other makers of chips based on ARM Holdings Plc (ARM) technology will gain an entry into the PC market later this year when Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 debuts in versions capable of working on the type of chip which dominates the mobile-phone industry.

. . .

For now, Read is touting the company’s new line of chips, called Trinity, whose designs predate his tenure at the company. The former International Business Machines Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd. (992) executive took over as AMD’s chief executive in August after a seven-month search to replace his ousted predecessor Dirk Meyer.

Trinity is one of the first steps in AMD’s attempts to produce processors that combine multiple functions rather than an emphasis on speed. Almost half of Trinity is devoted to graphics processing, something Read said will be important in displaying and enhancing processing work done elsewhere, in cloud computing.

The new chip design also has one model that uses less than half the power of current processors, making it better suited for the thinnest and lightest laptops. That will give AMD-based notebooks the ability to go all day on a single battery charge. Trinity will also have 70 percent better graphics performance that comparable Intel chips, AMD said.
. . .

Delivering Trinity will also help AMD prove to suppliers that it’s becoming more reliable. It won’t suffer from the supply shortages that held back sales of its predecessor, Read said. In addition, AMD’s pricing means that computer makers will be able to produce thin and light machines that are cheaper than the Ultrabooks being pushed by Intel, he said.

Rory Read said his company’s success will hinge on getting products to market more quickly

Delivering Trinity will also help AMD (AMD) (AMD) prove to suppliers that it’s becoming more reliable. It won’t suffer from the supply shortages that held back sales of its predecessor, Read said.