AMD steals exec from Dell

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD) has hired former Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) executive Ahmed Mahmoud as its new chief information officer. Mahmoud was recently a VP of Information Technology at Dell and had spent 13 years with the computer maker. This is a promotion for Mahmoud and a steep loss for Dell -- although Information Technology executives don't seem to share the media limelight regarding executive moves like CEOs and COOs do.

It's a short move for Mahmoud, moving from Dell's Round Rock, Texas headquarters to AMD's Austin, Texas campus. Although this is an internal move geared to ensure AMD's global IT operations are on the scale they need to be, the move comes at a precarious time in AMD's lifecycle. The company is in a negative spin as of late as a resurgent Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) has charged back with newer, faster and less power-hungry PC processor designs than its scrappy counterpart.

AMD will, of course, survive, but the company will have to stage a monumental effort to come back at Intel with just-as-fancy PC processors at the cutting edge of its business while continuing to fight the price war that seems to have always existed between the behemoth Intel and the smaller AMD. Mahmoud's task will be to ensure that all information in the company will flow as easily as possible so that competitive advantage takes firm root inside AMD. In fact, one of the largest (if not the largest) forms of competitive advantage resides in the breadth of information borne out of a company's systems that executives can use to make the correct decisions. In that way, Mahmoud's upcoming task is formidable -- but AMD needs it now more than ever.