AMD Reports Q4 FY 2014 And Full Year Results
| AMD Q4 2014 Financial Results (GAAP) | |||||
| Q4'2014 | Q3'2014 | Q4'2013 | |||
| Revenue | $1.24B | $1.43B | $1.59B | ||
| Operating Income | -$330M | $63M | $135M | ||
| Net Income | -$364M | $17M | $89M | ||
| Gross Margin | 29% | 35% | 35% | ||
| Earnings Per Share | -$0.47 | $0.02 | $0.12 | ||
AMD had three large reasons for the loss this quarter which hit their GAAP numbers pretty hard. First, they had yet another write down of their SeaMicro and ATI acquisitions, which they attribute to a decline in their stock prices. This cost them $233 million this quarter. Second, they have had to perform a write down for their second generation APU products, which they have listed higher on their balance sheets than they can sell them for now, however they do expect to sell through their inventory. This contributed to a $58 million non-cash charge. Finally, restructuring charges based on layoffs and the departure of their CEO, as well as real estate restructuring charges cost an additional $71 million. As these are all one time charges, AMD has also released Non-GAAP results which exclude these write downs.
On a Non-GAAP basis, operating income was $36 million, which is down 45% from last quarter’s $66 million value, and down year-over-year from the $91 million operating income from Q4 2013. Net income equates to $2 million, down from $20 million last quarter and $45 million last year, and Non-GAAP earnings per share is $0.00, which can also be spelled as zero, which missed analyst’s expectations of $0.01 per share. The core business is getting to the break-even point, and AMD has said that they have had six consecutive quarters of Non-GAAP profitability, but even that is on a razor’s edge with this quarter’s numbers.
| AMD Q4 2014 Financial Results (Non-GAAP) | |||||
| Q4'2014 | Q3'2014 | Q4'2013 | |||
| Revenue | $1.24B | $1.43B | $1.59B | ||
| Operating Income | $36M | $66M | $91M | ||
| Net Income | $2M | $20M | $45M | ||
| Gross Margin | 34% | 35% | 35% | ||
| Earnings Per Share | $0.00 | $0.03 | $0.06 | ||
Full numbers for the year had revenue of $5.51 billion, up from $5.30 billion in 2013, and the GAAP operating loss was $155 million for 2014, down from the $103 million operating income for 2013. GAAP net income for 2014 was down as well, to a $403 million loss, exceeding 2013’s loss of $83 million. Non-GAAP values for 2014 were slightly better, with a $235 million operating income and a small profit of $51 million for the fiscal year. Once again, the core business is breaking even, but the heavy write downs are hurting the bottom line.
Looking at individual business lines, the Computing and Graphics segment had a net revenue for Q4 of $662 million, down 15% from Q3 and down 16% from Q4 2013. Lower desktop processor and GPU sales are the blame over last quarter, and desktop processors and chipset sales are called out as the decrease over last year’s numbers. Operating loss for the segment was $56 million, as compared to $17 million in Q3 and $15 million in Q4 2013. Lower channel sales were partially offset by lower operating expenses. Average selling price actually increased both sequentially and year-over-year for processors and chipsets, but GPU selling price decreased year-over-year. This is a soft spot for AMD, and they are diversifying their business outside of the traditional PC space in an attempt to keep one weak line from hurting the company so much. In 2012, about 90% of AMD’s business was based on the traditional PC industry, and by 2014 it was down to 60%, with the other 40% consisting of professional graphics, semi-custom chips, ARM based server, embedded, and ultra low-power clients. By 2015 they are estimating that 50% of their business will be these new markets.
Looking at the Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom group at AMD, you can see why they are moving that direction. For the full fiscal year, this group contributed $2.374 billion in revenue, and had an operating income of $399 million, both of these are up from 2013 where they managed only $1.577 billion in revenue and $295 million in operating income from this group. Looking at the quarter itself, revenue fell 16% from Q3’s $648 million to $577 million, which AMD attributed to a large run-up of chips for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in Q3, as Microsoft and Sony built up inventory for the holiday season. Operating income for Q4 was $109 million, down from $129 million Q4 2013 and up slightly from the $108 million last quarter.
The “All Other” category had no revenue for the quarter, but took a $383 million operating loss, which results in a 2014 operating loss of $478 million for the year. This is the category that is taking the write downs we have already discussed.
Looking ahead to 2015, AMD is listing 2015 as “profitable” at least as far as Non-GAAP figures. Q1 2015 guidance is for a 15% drop in revenue, plus or minus 3%. Gross margin should be up 5% to 34%.
AMD has seen some pretty serious competition in the PC segment, which is still their largest single contributor. Intel has just released their 14 nm parts, with a new CPU architecture due out later this year with Skylake. AMD does have a new APU on the horizon though with Carrizo, and they had working prototypes at CES. While CPU performance will likely not stun anyone due to the new CPU being still based on the Bulldozer architecture, GPU performance should be very competitive. These will be 15 to 35 watt parts, so as far as TDP they will compete against the just launched Broadwell-U. For lower power, AMD will have the Carrizo-L based on Puma+ CPU cores for the 10-25 watt range. All of this will still be on 28 nm though, which puts AMD at a pretty significant disadvantage for efficiency. The increased GPU power may be enough to sway some customers, since many people find they are not CPU bound anyway. Time will tell, and we look forward to seeing the new chips show up so we can test them out.
Source: AMD Investor Relations
Read More ...
Toshiba CES 2015 Booth Tour: Encore 2 Write, Portege Z20t, and More
Starting with Encore 2 Write, Toshiba has built two Windows 8 tablets with some of their own software that actually provides some interesting use cases. As the name implies, the Encore 2 Write tablets include a stylus, TruPen™, which uses Wacom’s Active Electrostatics pen technology and a “pro-grade” pen tip with 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. I’m not enough of a stylus enthusiast to really offer any critique of the pen or implementation, but Toshiba had a collection of galleries that others had created using the stylus showing that in the right hands it can certainly be put to good use. More interesting to me was the collection of “Tru” apps: TruNote, TruCapture, and TruRecorder.
TruNote is similar to other stylus-enabled interfaces I’ve seen, with the ability to scribble notes, mark up photos, paint, etc. It does work with Microsoft Office and has a custom user interface for managing your notes. One interesting aspect was the object recognition, where you could draw objects (triangles, rectangles, stars, cylinders, etc.) and TruNote would convert them into Office draw objects for easy manipulation. Of course handwriting recognition is also present and it was able to properly decipher my chicken scratches in my limited testing.
TruCapture was something I haven’t really seen done before, at least not in the same fashion. It uses the built-in 8MP camera and allows capturing images, followed by OCR on sections if you want to convert text to a non-image format. The application can also perform keystone adjustment, so in one sequence they snapped an off-angle picture of a placard and the software was able to recognize the object and convert it back to a more or less properly shaped rectangle. For the image recognition, they took a picture of the front page of USA Today, selected the text they wanted to convert, and then a notepad popped up with the raw text output. While it’s not something I would necessarily use much, I could certainly see applications for researchers, students, and other professionals where TruCapture would be useful.
Finally, TruRecorder uses the built in dual array microphones to help detect and analyze different voices during a group recording. As an example, a recording of a meeting with three attendees was shown where the software was able to pick out the individuals and then create an audio track view showing when each one is participating in the conversation. Along with the ability to skip silence, you can play back one or more individuals (i.e. so if you wanted to only listen to comments from one person, you could do that). Again, in the write environment the software could prove useful. (Side note: I’d love to see it analyze our recent podcast.)
As far as the hardware in the tablets, Toshiba is using quad-core Intel Atom Z3735F (up to 1.83GHz) with 2GB RAM and a rather surprising 64GB of eMMC storage. The tablets include GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, and e-compass sensors. Also included are a micro USB 2.0 port, micro HDMI port, and micro SDXC slot with support for up to 128GB of external storage. Connectivity consists of dual-band 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. Other features include 1.2MP front- and 8MP rear-facing cameras and battery life rated at up to 11 hours.
The Encore 2 Write is available in two sizes at present, 10.1” and 8”, though both are only 1280x800 resolution panels. The 8” model measures 132mm x 211mm x 9.4mm and weighs 381g, with a 15Wh battery capacity. It is available now with an MSRP of $350. The larger 10.1” tablet measures 259mm x 175mm x 8.9mm and weighs 550g with an MSRP of $400. Both tablets include Windows 8.1 with Bing and include a 1-year subscription to Office 365 Personal. While the pricing is a bit higher than I’d like, again I applaud the inclusion of 64GB of storage as the default, and the Wacom Active Capacitance Pen is certainly going to be worth the added cost for some users.
Moving over to the hybrid/Ultrabook side of things, the Portege Z20t is a new device sporting Core M processors with a 12.5” 1080p IPS display. It also supports and includes a Wacom stylus – it appears to be the same stylus as in the Encore 2 Write with 2048 points of pressure sensitivity, though I’m not sure if the same Tru apps available on the Encore 2 Write are available (which would be a shame if they’re not).
Other features on the tablet include 2x2 802.11ac WiFi + BT4.0 (Intel AC-7265), micro USB 2.0, micro HDMI, micro SD, and an “emergency pen” (not as nice as the full stylus but still usable – see the gallery); the tablet has a built-in 36Wh battery and 2MP front- and 5MP rear-facing cameras. Moving over to the keyboard dock, it adds a second 36Wh battery (good for 17.4 hours of combined battery life), touchpad, backlit keyboard with full size keys, pointing stick, VGA port, full size HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet port, and two USB 3.0 ports.
The Portege line is for business users, so as you’d expect the pricing and features are going to go after that market. As such, the Z20t is available with either a Core M-5Y51 or Core M-5Y71, with either 4GB RAM on the base model or 8GB on the upgraded models. Storage consists of 128GB M.2 SSDs for two of the models, with the top spec going for 256GB of M.2 storage. The base model has an MSRP of $1400, while upgrading to 8GB RAM and the faster Core M processor bumps the price up to $1600, and if you want 256GB of storage that brings the total to $1700. If you just want the tablet portion (without the digitizer or keyboard), it is available as the Portege WT20 with a starting price of $900. The Z20t is available for order now while the WT20 should be available in February.
Finally, I wanted to quickly talk about TransferJet, a protocol and set of devices designed to allow high speed transfers of data between devices simply by touching them together. TransferJet isn’t new (it’s been around for a few years), but Toshiba now has TransferJet adapters for iOS devices (the first time anyone has done TransferJet on iOS apparently) as well as second generation USB adapters for Windows and micro USB adapters for Android.
TransferJet uses a close proximity ultra-wideband wireless technology to send and receive data at up to 560Mbps, though of course you need flash devices capable of reading/writing at those speeds to make it work and wireless overhead means the theoretical maximum is closer to 375Mbps. The short range also means TransferJet won’t disrupt other WiFi services and there’s little potential for accidental data leakage (plus you can lock devices to only speak to other registered TransferJet devices). Basically, think of it as NFC but with about 1000 times the potential bandwidth for data transmission.
The way TransferJet works is that you open up the TransferJet app on one device, select the files you want to send, and then touch the two TransferJet adapters together. Toshiba demonstrated transmission of a 100MB movie in about 3 seconds using TransferJet with their new iOS adapter. The problem is that TransferJet has been available in a few devices going back as far as 2010, but it still hasn’t gained much traction that I can see. Until/unless we see more devices directly incorporate TransferJet, it will likely remain more of a niche protocol.
Read More ...
HP Announces New Business Mobility Devices
Today HP announced a collection of product updates with their “Business-First” approach to mobility; the full press release has all the pertinent details. The core message HP is trying to convey is that they are putting business use cases front and center. All of the devices announced today fall into the category of tablets, with a couple of them offering docks/keyboards that turn them into hybrid devices. Even the hybrids are more of a "tablet first" mentality, with fully detachable tablet portions rather than using a slider or 360 degree hinge. With eight new devices plus accessories to cover let’s just get straight to the products.
First up we have the HP Pro Slate 8 and HP Pro Slate 12, 8-inch and 12-inch Android 4.4 tablets with Snapdragon 800 SoCs (2.3GHz quad-core Krait 400) and 4:3 aspect ratio displays. The two new Pro Slates also include the HP Duet Pen, the first stylus to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon digital pen technology. The “Duet” part comes from the stylus supporting a stylus tip on one end and a traditional ink tip on the other; you can use the ink tip with the optional HP Paper Folio (coming in the spring) to digitize drawings and other content apparently. Both tablets also support ARM TrustZone, with 256-bit hardware acceleration and are FIPS 140-2 certified for DAR and VPN encryption.
The HP Pro Slate 8 is also one of the first tablets to utilize the new Corning Gorilla Glass 4, and it has a 7.9” 2048x1536 QXGA display. Other features include 2GB LPDDR3-800 RAM, 16GB or 32GB eMMC storage, 802.11ac WiFi with Bluetooth 4.0 + LE, and NFC. It has a micro SD slot, nano-SIM support, micro USB 2.0 port, 3.5mm headset hack, and front-facing stereo speakers. Dimensions are 137mm x 207mm x 8mm with a weight of 350g. It includes a 21WHr battery, though no specific battery life figure is given (just “long battery life”). It has a starting price of $449.
The HP Pro Slate 12 features nearly identical specifications, with the primary difference being the 12.3” 1600x1200 display. Camera options again consist of 2MP FHD video capable front-facing and 8MP FHD video capable rear-facing. The dimensions of the Slate 12 are 300mm x 222mm x 8mm with a weight of 850g, and it includes a 37WHr battery. Pricing starts at $569 for the Pro Slate 12.
For the education sector, HP also has the HP Pro Tablet 10 EE G1 (Education Edition) and HP Pro Slate 10 EE G1, which pass IP-52 testing for dust and moisture and come with Intel’s Bay Trail Atom Z3735G or Z3735F (up to 1.83GHz quad-core) SoCs. The main difference between the two parts is that Z3735F supports 2GB dual-channel memory while Z3735G supports 1GB single-channel memory. Both devices appear to use the same core design, with the Pro Slate 10 EE G1 coming with Android 4.4 while the Pro Tablet 10 EE G1 comes with Windows 8.1. The display is a 10.1” 1280x800 IPS panel, so nothing special there.
Features include 2x2 802.n WiFi with BT 4.0 + LE, micro SD, 3.5mm headset, micro USB, micro HDMI, 1.2MP front-facing and 2MP rear-facing or 2MP front-facing and 5MP rear-facing cameras, and a 28.5WHr battery. GPS is also supported. There are several optional accessories, including a stylus, keyboard, tablet sleeve, and multi-tablet charging station. The devices measure 280mm x 182mm x 14.4mm and weigh 855g, so these are definitely bulkier – and presumably more durable in order to withstand the rigors of students – devices. Oddly, the Pro Tablet model is listed as 850g – I’m not sure why it would weigh 5g less as Windows tends to be a heavier OS [hooray for nerd humor], but maybe there’s some minor difference I’m missing. Both devices are available now, with the Pro Slate 10 EE G1 starting at $279 and the Pro Tablet 10 EE starting at $299 for education and $349 for all other customers – though it does include a 1-year subscription to Office 365 personal.
The Elite x2 1011 G1 is next, a hybrid device with Core M processor support (Core M-5Y71, 5Y51, or 5Y10c, depending on the configuration). This is an 11.6” device with either a 1920x1080 IPS display or a 1366x768 IPS display. It runs Windows 8.1 (Windows 7 Professional is also an option, as it FreeDOS 2.0) and comes with either 4GB or 8GB memory and SSD support from 128GB up to 512GB M.2 (or 180GB to 256GB M.2 SE). Along with optional mobile broadband, the Elite x2 1011 G1 includes either Intel AC 7265 (2x2 802.11ac WiFi with BT4.0+LE), AN-7265 (2x2 802.11n + BT4.0), or Intel TriBand AC-17265 (2x2 802.11ac + BT4.0 with WiGig). The tablet contains a micro SD slot and micro-SIM slot and a headset connector, and the 4.5mm AC power connection.
The tablet is sold on its own, while a power keyboard and travel keyboard are optional extras. The power keyboard adds DisplayPort 1.2, 2 x USB 3.0 (one with charging), another 3.5mm headphone/microphone port, and another 4.5mm AC adapter port. There’s also an optional Wacom stylus. Other features include 2MB front- and 5MP rear-facing cameras, TPM 1.2/2.0, fingerprint reader (power keyboard), smart card reader (power keyboard), and various other security features from HP.
The tablet has a 2-cell 33WHr battery while the power keyboard has 6-cell (that may be a typo) 21WHr battery. Dimensions of the tablet portion are 298mm x 193mm x 10.7 mm and 870g; adding the power keyboard results in dimensions of 298mm x 204mm x 20.8mm. The power keyboard weighs 780g and the travel keyboard (no battery) weighs 530g. Pricing for the tablet starts at $899 with availability expected this month; there’s no word on the pricing for the power or travel keyboards.
HP’s Pro Tablet 408 G1 goes after the affordable market, with a starting price of $299. It’s an 8” 1280x800 tablet with Intel Atom Z3736F (quad-core up to 2.16GHz) and 2GB RAM, with 32GB or 64GB eMMC storage. The base model has Windows 8.1 with Bing, which is part of the low price, while Windows 8.1 Pro 32-bit is also an option. I’ve actually poked around at a different quad-core Bay Trail tablet at CES, and the SoC appears reasonably fast (for Atom and low-power SoCs), and coupled with the 1-year Office 365 subscription it’s a reasonable bundle. Other features include micro SDXC (up to 128GB), micro-B USB 2.0, 3.5mm headset, 2MP front and 8MB rear-facing cameras, GPS/AGPS, and 802.11n + BT4.0 LE. The Pro Tablet 408 G1 measures 215mm x 140mm x 9mm and weighs 375g. It’s available now.
Wrapping things up, HP has the ElitePad 1000 G2 in Healthcare and Rugged versions. (Did anyone else see dollar signs just flash in front of them?) The core tablet appears the same but the chassis is slightly different; the Healthcare version comes with a an antimicrobial treatment and meets IP54 standards while the Rugged version is rated for IP65 and MIL-STD 810 and includes a protective jacket that also doubles the battery capacity. The tablet in either case features an Atom Z3785 (quad-core up to 2.39GHz) processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB eMMC storage, and a 10.1” 1920x1200 display with digitizer. Other features include 802.11n + BT4.0, mobile broadband support, NFC, one HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, 2.1MP front- and 8MP rear-facing cameras, and plenty of security features (as you’d expect for anything designed to be used in the healthcare sector). There’s an optional 2D barcode reader available as well.
The ElitePad 1000 G2 Healthcare and Rugged do have a few differences other than appearance. The Healthcare model has two digital microphones and a pen clip connection while the Rugged adds an RJ-45 and serial ports but apparently skips the built-in microphones. The standard battery is a 2-cell 30WHr and the Rugged as noted earlier doubles capacity with a second 30WHr battery in the jacket. The Rugged measures 285.5mm x 215mm x 33mm and weighs 1450g while the Healthcare is 278mm x 207.5mm x 20mm and weighs 1100g. Pricing of the Healthcare model starts at $1499 and it’s available now while the Rugged should start shipping next month with a starting price of $1599.
HP also mentions the availability of their $199 Retail Case of ElitePad, which adds two built-in cradles for mounting payment devices and the ability to dock to POS solutions. It also features hand and shoulder straps. The case is available now.
Read More ...
Google Updates Chrome for iOS With Material Design and Handoff
The new interface looks very nice, although Chrome for OS X has not received the full Material Design treatment yet so there are some differences between the appearance of Chrome on each platform. There's also a point to be made about Google making applications that follow their own design guidelines on iOS rather than Apple's. Having used Android Lollipop, using this new version of Chrome it almost feel like you're running an Android application on iOS. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and if Google brings this interface to OS X then the consistency between the two will certainly be a good thing, but it's something to note about Google's approach to iOS applications in general.
Beyond changes to the visual design of the application, Chrome 40 is going to look much better for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users in particular. This is becsuse Chrome 40 now has native layouts for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which will remedy any issues with blurriness or fuzziness caused by Apple's upscaling of the 1136x640 interface to the displays of the new iPhones.
Google has also implemented support for Handoff, which is a very exciting improvement for anyone who uses an iOS device and an OS X device. What makes it even better is that Google has implemented Handoff for Chrome on iOS so that it works with the default browser on OS X. This means that you can move from a tab in Chrome on your iPhone or iPad and pick it up in Safari on your Mac, or whatever other browser you have set as your default. Unfortunately, this can't work both ways, and so you can't send a tab back from Safari to Chrome on iOS. To do that you'll need to be using Chrome on both devices.
Regardless, having a developer like Google implementing Handoff is exciting for any Mac users. Most applications that have currently adopted Handoff are those made by Mac and iOS centric developers, while bigger companies with multi-platform applications generally haven't bothered to add support for a feature specific to a single ecosystem.
In addition to the big changes, Chrome 40 includes the various improvements to speed and reliability that most Chrome updates bring.
Read More ...
Samsung Portable SSD T1 Review
The last few years have seen rapid advancements in flash technology and the rise of USB 3.0 as an ubiquitous high-speed interface on computers. These have led to the appearance of small and affordable direct attached storage units with very high performance for day-to-day data transfer applications. We have already looked at some SSDs with a USB 3.0 - SATA bridge over the last couple of months. At CES 2015, Samsung launched the Portable SSD T1. Read on for our review of what it offers as a direct-attached storage unit.
Read More ...
Synology Introduces RS815+ and DS2415+ Rangeley NAS Units
The RS815+ looks to target the same market segment as the ReadyNAS 3130 that was introduced by Netgear yesterday. However, the RS815+ uses a SoC with more cores / clocked higher. On the flip side, the RS815+ doesn't come with ECC RAM, while the ReadyNAS 3130 does.
The other product that is getting introduced today is the DS2415+, a tower-form factor system with twelve native drive bays (expandable to 24 using a DX1215 expansion unit). The internal hardware platform (SoC / RAM / number of LAN ports etc.) are similar to the RS815+. The DS2415+ is ideal for applications where massive amounts of fast encrypted storage is desired.
The two new products, unfortunately, are not available for the North American market right now. The pricing is also yet to be determined in USD. However, consumers in UK can find the RS815RP+ on Amazon for £1,207 and the DS2415+ on Scan for £1111.today.
Read More ...
Study Shows People are Dumb as Ever With Passwords, Still Using "123456"
Public remains relatively ignorant of the risks of using obvious/guessable passwords
Read More ...
Report: Windows 10 Preview to Expand to Mobile Devices in February
Microsoft is also rumored to be prepping a laptop-smartphone hybrid device and a gaming helmet dubbed "Project B"
Read More ...
Quick Note: With Windows 10, the Windows Source Hits Build 10,000
Yes, its over 9,000
Read More ...
Police are Using New Handheld Radar Sensors to Peer Into Houses w/out Warrant
Big brother is watching you in your home (no, really)
Read More ...
Available Tags:AMD , Toshiba , HP , Google , Chrome , iOS , Samsung , SSD , Windows ,
No comments:
Post a Comment