INTRODUCTION
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was founded on May 1, 1969 by Jerry Sanders and seven of his friends in the living room of one of the co-founders. Based on the company's corporate website, www.amd.com, AMD describes itself as "a customer-centric innovation company, focused on best meeting the needs of leading computing, wireless, and consumer electronics companies to help them deliver high-performance, energy-efficient and visually realistic solutions."
After 30 years of innovating and leading the company, Sanders made room for Hector Ruiz to assume the position of CEO in 2002. During Ruiz's reign in power, AMD saw many successes, specifically through its 2003-released 64-bit microprocessor, Opteron. The Opteron received much praise and business primarily due to the fact that its updated technology did not require software upgrades unlike its primary competitor, the Intel Itanium 2. With the help of the Opteron, AMD was quickly emerging out of Intel's shadow.
Despite this achievement, AMD also had a variety of challenges to which it needed to overcome. These challenges included constant threats from its competitors in the processor industry including Intel, Korea's Samsung Electronics, and Texas Instruments, and a falling stock price in 2005.
However, Ruiz had several innovations that were expected to boost the company ahead of its primary competitor, Intel. In 2004, AMD introduced new manufacturing techniques, released a series of microprocessors for corporate users, and pushed a new technology which put several microprocessors on a single chip. The company also launched its Turion 64 chip targeted at mobile computing, created new business divisions ...