Good conversation with AMD PR.

i have to do a little research for them right now .. i'll fill you in on the details later on

Anyone interested to hear what AMD PR said in a very long phone conversation with me?
- And i am done responding to the other forum. If you have questions, ask me directly here. My message finally reached its target today - about 4 months late.

Please share!!!!

Hells Yea'!

I'm very curious

Everything is going on at once .. the phone, visitors,

.. even a delivery with another (hardware) surprise



What a day!

Back when i can ..

i talked to upper level AMD PR and will say just now that it is more positive than i expected.
-- ABT is back in communication with AMD; they are talking to us again and taking this seriously

i really don't have any time until after dinner


Mission accomplished on all points. Today. We were blocked in getting this information to AMD and now the blockade is gone (thanks to Jon!!) and there is an internal investigation as to the supposed "blacklisting" (because according to them, AMD doesn't blacklist ,,, and there is now basis for a "misunderstanding")

i'll get back as soon as i can

And ATF VC&G forum sure is infatuated with this forum




i'll update

That's great news! Good work, apoppin. It will be great to have this site getting inside information and hardware from AMD.

I'm really happy to hear that things are going better with AMD.

Those guys at ATF are trolls.

i am still super pressed for time but here's what transpired

After emailing Jon Peddie, a few hours later, Chris Hook (head of AMD World wide product reviews) emailed me and asked if we could talk about my blog and maybe clear up negative impressions. i said that i'd love to talk and perhaps also clear up misunderstanding about ABT and our intentions, and i gave him my phone number

i'll say before we go into the conversation that this is what i was hoping for when i first contacted AMD about my issues with AMD employees posting at VC&G. And Chris and i talked for quite some time.

First of all, he was very defensive. That AMD *does* make it clear to their employees that they must identify themselves on social media. Secondly, he assured me that AMD does "not blacklist review sites".

Of course, i countered that we were clearly blacklisted. That my numerous emails and phone messages left on AMD PR's voicemail were being completely ignored - for months. i told him that i even sent my blog to AMD PR and they did not bother to respond then as he is now. So he asked for evidence and i forwarded quite a few emails to him that were also CC'd to AMD officials as well as to the PR person that i was responding to. And he will find that it was right after my CES meeting with a certain PR official, that they cut off all communication with ABT.

He brought up - after probably looking up ABT's file - that his PR team had noted that we were untrustworthy - that we had broken an NDA on the HD 6990 launch. i told him that i remembered but that i had *written permission* from AMD's PR company (Byte Communications) to post what i did at the at the time and that i was excused from any wrong doing. And so he asked for the original emails that documented this to be forwarded to him.

As to AMD employees posting at tech forums without disclosure, he was very defensive and asked for more information - he wants "proof". i reminded him that the nature of "stealth" is to hide and that any AMD employees would be afraid of losing their jobs if they were exposed. i also reminded him that AMD encourages their employees to post - yet not one poster at B3D or ATF identifies themselves as AMD employees.

i believe he will contact Anand and probably want to talk to Idontcare, the forum administrator. i hope he keeps an open mind. i also reminded him about David Makin their "friend" that tried to set up ABT as an AMD flog.

So the good news is .. and the ONLY thing that ABT was aiming for in the first place ... is that there will be an AMD internal investigation. They will look into the "why" ABT was really blacklisted - a misunderstanding, or whatever. And they may follow up as they see fit into the allegations that their employees post on tech forums without disclosure.

Our mission is accomplished. Although we would have much preferred that this not become public at all and that they would have addressed our concerns back in January.

Interesting.

Hopefully things will get cleared up and ABT will be a media partner again.

Good result Mark, but aside from ABT not being blacklisted, what we really really want, is the names of any AMD employees posting on AFT & not advising their bias if there is any of course.....