TR Forums

Yeah asking for PMs is a little weird after your original post but, whatever, PM sent.

Ryhadar wrote:

Yeah asking for PMs is a little weird after your original post but, whatever, PM sent.

I'd suggest any PM traffic be reposted here- but that's just me. What good is a PR guy that can't work in public?

.

Airmantharp wrote:

And you don't sound committed. Are you sure AMD is getting their money's worth from you?

My g*d, what's with the angry face? Is this the kind of welcome the TR community should extend to a company rep that has the courage to step into the lions' den, especially considering how JF-AMD got chewed up by the community after being screwed over by AMD engineering? (For what it's worth, I think JF didn't get treated fairly at all.)

Welcome, Sam! As you can see, your life here won't be easy, but try not to worry about these extremists that think they have the right to know everything and get all upset if they don't get immediate answers to all their questions. I understand that you can't answer everything openly, and I think they do too (at least they should), so I think if you can point us to relevant public information about AMD's products, that would be helpful. Like, in my case, if there is some information about ultrathin Richland laptops and their battery life (especially compared to Intel's offerings) somewhere, that would be extremely helpful - I'm in the market for such a laptop now, and I'm eagerly looking for (unbiased) info on those.

Oh, and know that if you give some sensitive info to anyone here in a PM, it will most likely be shared publicly in the forums or article comments in no time...

NeelyCam wrote:

Airmantharp wrote:

And you don't sound committed. Are you sure AMD is getting their money's worth from you?

My g*d, what's with the angry face?

Who said anything about angry? I'm more concerned that AMD is being misrepresented to the community.

.

Airmantharp wrote:

NeelyCam wrote:

Airmantharp wrote:

And you don't sound committed. Are you sure AMD is getting their money's worth from you?

My g*d, what's with the angry face?

Who said anything about angry? I'm more concerned that AMD is being misrepresented to the community.

You don't speak for all of us. I don't think SAM was misrepresenting the company. Being rude was completely uncalled here. You forgot, he has a limitation, he cannot answer each and every question being asked here, especially when all questions are related to future products.

Also, if he repetitively denies to answer the questions being asked here, he will only spread negative impression of the company (AMD) he represents.

If thats what you plan than you can press on...

Airmantharp wrote:

Who said anything about angry? I'm more concerned that AMD is being misrepresented to the community.

That's pretty much what official reps do. They here to paint rosy pictures of their employers, and then bear the brunt of our rage and frustration when reality turns out different.
His predecessor, JF-AMD did exceedingly well with both.

jihadjoe wrote:

Airmantharp wrote:

Who said anything about angry? I'm more concerned that AMD is being misrepresented to the community.

That's pretty much what official reps do. They here to paint rosy pictures of their employers, and then bear the brunt of our rage and frustration when reality turns out different.
His predecessor, JF-AMD did exceedingly well with both.

I don't disagree- he can say 'I don't know' or 'I can't comment on unreleased products' or 'I'll get back to you'- that'd be great!

It's the whole unprofessional (IMO) 'I'll just address one poster every rare time I log on' thing that stands out. He has the opportunity to engage the community and capitalize on AMD's recent strengths, but instead comes across, to me, as lazy. And I'm not trying to pick on the guy; I'm glad he's here and that AMD has a program that seeks to involve the community! But it needs to get much better; AMD definitely deserves better.

Reading briefly through this thread reminds me why a lot of businesses don't support this type of customer interaction. The cost/benefit ratio is very skewed. SAM could spend hours upon hours researching these questions for you, clearing them in PR, and posting them... only to get maybe a sale or two out of tech savy folks who already have made up their minds before the question was asked, or get beat up over the response because the answer was not liked.

I say lets expect marking to severely throttle what Sam can divulge to the community. Be polite and understanding. Remember we are getting what we paid for through him, it is only fair to be patient and realize he has to clear some information first, or has been asked to say nothing about it. I'm certain he doesn't have a ton of insight into what features have been hamstrung over the years and why... too much history there or there are legal reasons (patent infringement).

If we get some insight into AMD and a few rare tidbits sneak out, I call that a bonus and more than we could hope for. I say welcome to Sam, stick with it, don your fireproof vest, and keep up the support!

Above all, don't expect miracles when the support is free.

Yeah, don't be rude, guys. Sam's job ain't easy at all, especially with a company that has had to use PR and marketing to sell their products lately because Intel's being such a big, ruthless gorilla these days. No person here, not even Rory Read himself, can appease our questions. There are so many questions from AMD, questions whose answers are probably under NDA or can't be revealed at this point just yet.

Wishing you good luck, Sam. AMD FTW! (Yeah, I need to prove to Bensam that I'm an AMD fanboi! Jeez!)

Can you give us all a general idea how is the new high end Hawaii GPU going to compare to the GTX780 and titan on performance?? Pretty please who cares about NDA's AMD is going to announce the big boy Hawaii GPU in Hawaii Sept 25 anyways, only 40 days away.

A little bit of information could get people to hold up on buying GTX780's since it is going to cost $600 perhaps less making it at least $50 cheaper then the 780.

Also when can we expect to see another driver update for frame pacing so you can get rid of those stock piled 7990's you fellas dropped the price 200 dollars. Plus it could encourage more 7950 and 7970 purchases for crossfire setups

EDIT:
So are you going to Hawaii for the big unveiling ?

Welcome to the community, at this point it goes without saying but I hope you are ready to face an extremely intelligent and curious group of people.

Huh... looks like this thread died completely.

RIP, AMD 'community outreach program', we hardly knew ye.

Maybe they'll regroup and put something useful together next time?

Yeah. Disappeared... just like that. What's up with that, AMD?

.

clone wrote:

why are you asking here?

preferred discussion method was PM not this thread, this thread was a meet and greet.

If I want to initiate a 'private' discussion, I'll email someone who actually works directly for AMD, thanks.

Meh, this guy isn't going to tell us anything you can't already read on Fudzilla, even WCCFtech will be a better indicator of what's to come from AMD than a PR guy who can't tell us anything we ask him because most of it is probably still under NDA.

Prestige Worldwide wrote:

Meh, this guy isn't going to tell us anything you can't already read on Fudzilla, even WCCFtech will be a better indicator of what's to come from AMD than a PR guy who can't tell us anything we ask him because most of it is probably still under NDA.

Yup, and that's exactly why his presence here was questionable at best- I mean, seriously, what can he offer?

And I have an answer to that- which he patently failed. He had the opportunity to tell us what he can tell us- even if it's 95% 'I can't talk about that, wink wink'- and instead chose to cherry pick topics while outright ignoring most of the inquiries that were in response to his own thread. Further, it doesn't look like he sought to be vetted by TR leadership or forum moderators; regular forum members had to dig up dirt on him just to attempt to confirm his legitimacy, which is a big concern.

Last, in the responses he did provide, he tried to be as opaque as possible. That's great for a politician, sure, as it keeps ammo out of the hands of your opponents, but that's not going to be conducive to engaging the community around your company's products and services as a 'community representative' for said company.

Crap like ignoring questions outright- it takes what, ten seconds to respond?- and directing questions to PM's just comes across as shady at best, especially when we know that he doesn't have anything 'new' to offer us. The real value that he could have provided to AMD was that he could have acted as a tailored marketing tool to enthusiast communities, and that he could have filtered all of the reactions and critiques that enthusiasts share about companies like AMD in places like the TR forums and communicated them back to AMD in a useful manner, allowing them to better target their products to their prospective customers.

So if anyone has lost here, it's AMD- their employees, their managers, their shareholders- and of course their customers. And that's sad, because a competitive AMD is good for everyone, and a non-competitive AMD means less innovation and higher prices for all of us.

Well it seemed like he was in way over his head here. Seems like he was more suited to answer only the barest of easy questions and not much else beyond buy AMD, NV is bad stuff. Maybe next time AMD will send someone that can at least engage our comunity.

clone wrote:

why are you asking here?

preferred discussion method was PM not this thread, this thread was a meet and greet.

Well, I did send Warsam a PM shortly after this thread started but I never got a response. So much for PMs.

Starfalcon wrote:

Well it seemed like he was in way over his head here. Seems like he was more suited to answer only the barest of easy questions and not much else beyond buy AMD, NV is bad stuff. Maybe next time AMD will send someone that can at least engage our comunity.

I'll second that. Wonder if we can get Damage and Co. to engage AMD over this issue directly?

Starfalcon wrote:

Maybe next time AMD will send someone that can at least engage our community.

Just to temper things a bit, don't expect a marketing droid to give us an inside pre-release scoop on upcoming hardware. That job belongs to the D&D crew (Damage & Dissonance).

Oh, absolutely no doubt he was in over his head. But he did express a willingness (in a PM exchange I had with him) to go the extra mile to chase down people who could help him answer the more technical questions. Only time will tell whether he is truly willing, able, and allowed to follow through on that.

Yeah but the fact after that he completely disappeared, show that he ran for the hills after getting swamped with stuff he had no clue about. He might do okay on Toms hardware with marketing speak, but not here where many people have a lot of deep knowledge.

Don't be so hard on the chap; he's demonstrated world-class execution and skill in synergistically aligning his core competencies with AMD's innovative Chirping Crickets marketing strategy.

Joined:
Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:08 pm
Last visited:
Fri Aug 30, 2013 11:17 pm

maybe only got paid one month?

Bonusbartus wrote:

Joined:
Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:08 pm
Last visited:
Fri Aug 30, 2013 11:17 pm

maybe only got paid one month?

Maybe he was an intern hired with money from the Google Summer of Marketing* program?

* The lesser-known cousin of Google Summer of Code.

.