Is AMD the next bargain purchase for MS after Nokia? (EXTRACT) http://www.kitguru.net/components/a...erested-to-buy-advanced-micro-devices-source/ This adquisition could make MS independent from Intel to power his Surface tablets with it's own APUs and his console even getting money for each Sony PS4 sold! Can this make MS a serious threat for Apple in the phone and tablets bussiness? What do you think?
I think they should do it, but i doubt they would do it. It would make nvidia and intel **** themselves. Think about, Microsoft games, Microsoft direkt x, Microsoft gpus, Microsoft cpus, Microsoft operating system... PC gaming will have consoles exclusivity. You will have games running on amd hardware and emulated to run on nvidia/intel hardware... Or maybe i'm just daydreaming. They certainly got the money for it though.
AMD has a deal with intel for the X86 licence, AMD would lose that licence if it becomes part of another company, so AMD needs to stay independent, smart move by Intel because that way they can always keep their competitor low, but quite trolling actually, AMD would do better with a new owner with bucket loads of money to improve their R&D.
if it happens, and those rumours are actually more than just some gossip chit chat then the new gpu branch of MS will get some boost (marketing & research/development) to leave nvidia behind on the market and not only in the tech papers and in theory.
oh yes it is! i fast read over the thread and didnt see it sorry. it's no harm but i will remove it to reduce confusion
Are we sure about that clause? The AMD purchase would make more sense than the Nokia one in the long run for MS.
No more or less...simply a complementary purchase if this operation open the APU/GPU bussiness for MS to use them in his tablet/Phone lines. This kind of sinergy could cut MS costs A LOT allowing it to sell his products for less and still have a big profitable margin. Take a look at apple corner and his control over software (IOS) and hardware (Ax) in his phone/tablets line. Add to this the reduced costs for his consoles and the money for each PS4 sold due to AMD hardware used. A MS wet dream.
At this moment the arguably best GPU (Raja Koduri, the guy who designed the new Apple GPUs), and the best CPU (Jim Keller, the person behind the Athlon/Athlon64, co-designer of the amd64 spec and of the Apple A4/A7 CPUs) designers in the world are working at AMD. Microsoft has close to $70 billion at hand. AMD's market cap is $1.82B today. They can offer $3 billion and get it tomorrow. It's worth it for the patents and the brains alone. EDIT: Interesting article about the patent agreement. The agreement text itself.
What would be the immediate ramifications for stock holders? The long term outcome may be good if profits are turned around.
Intel has to agree to it first, or AMD loses the x86 license. I can't see that ever happening, especially since something scary like MS, Apple or Samsung are the buyers.
The AMD CEO thinks otherwise, at least express it in a completely different way. http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...intel-cannot-block-our-merger-or-acquisition/ The second bolded paragraph could mean Samsung has no options due to sensitive technology involved(?). And it was later clarified by: http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...nge-of-control-terminates-agreement-for-both/ ?¿?¿ Red bolded text should prevail over all PR stuff? ?¿?¿
Even if Intel x86 license would carry over. M$ buying AMD seems unlikely - AMD is heavily in debt (2 billion) - AMD is not making any profit - Restructuring or integrating AMD into M$ would be very costly. If stock holders agreed to let's say a +50% market price deal. That would mean 3 billion cost and 2 billion of debt for Microsoft.. Plus continuing loss and other costs. Doesn't make much sense after the Nokia devices fiasco, which is still losing money and Microsoft might stop manufacturing phones.
I don't mind who purchases AMD/ATI as long as they produce competitive graphics cards. Nvidia alone is a very bad thing for gamers. interesting I bet Microsoft has never had fan boys mmmm microfanboys
The two billion of debt are not really a problem, they move around 6 billion in cash every year. They recently had an investment from BLX, which is a state-run Chinese company. The rumor mill says that they want to order server APUs, and they go for AMD because of the state of their open source driver (which is by far the best at the moment). AMD has small profit margins and small market capitalization, but they are not a small company in any sense of the world. Their patents alone are double in number than Nortel's (which had around 6.000), and they are lodged in the middle of the PC ecosystem. Half of the things done by DX12 and Vulcan are patented by AMD. The 64bit x86 design is an AMD patent. If Microsoft manages to get them, they more or less (in combination with Windows) get to control PC gaming.
