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AMD shuffles executives, creates new engineering group

Randy Allen will now run Advanced Micro Devices' processor group, as Mario Rivas pays the price for the Barcelona debacle.

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit
2 min read

Advanced Micro Devices finalized a major reorganization Monday, promoting a senior executive into a new role and waving goodbye to two others.

Randy Allen, the new head of AMD's Computing Solutions Group. AMD

Randy Allen, formerly head of AMD's server business, will take on a new role as senior vice president, Computing Solutions Group, which until Monday was occupied by Mario Rivas, AMD said Monday after the close of the stock market. Rivas is leaving the company to pursue the famous "new opportunities" that always lie in store after a company decides to part ways with an executive. Allen will essentially oversee all of AMD's processor and chipset development.

As part of the reorganization, AMD is also creating a new group called the Central Engineering organization, which will be led by Chekib Akrout and Jeff VerHeul. This group will be responsible for developing AMD's road map, and it will report directly to AMD President and COO Dirk Meyer. Central Engineering will work with customers and the internal business units to develop AMD's future plans for its processor designs, an AMD representative said.

Changes have been long expected at AMD, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year and a half while it struggled to get Barcelona, a quad-core server processor, out the door. As leader of the chip group, Rivas appears to be taking the fall for the Barcelona debacle. Earlier this year, Phil Hester also left AMD after serving as chief technology officer.

AMD CEO Hector Ruiz has promised to get the company back to profitability in the third quarter of this year--otherwise these moves may not be the last executive changes at AMD in 2008.