AMD Up For Sale? Dell Interested?

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According to ZDNet, rumors are circulating that AMD is for sale and that Dell might be interested in buying.

Could Dell be interested in AMD? At around $6 billion, it would be one heck of a purchase and certainly give the company leverage against Intel, and give the OEM not only access to CPUs, but also GPUs, which means pressure on NVIDIA too.
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According to the other thread in the processors section, the biggest issue of anyone buying AMD is the renegotiation of the cross-licensing agreements of x86/x64 which are void is anyone buys out AMD.
 
kirbyrj said:
According to the other thread in the processors section, the biggest issue of anyone buying AMD is the renegotiation of the cross-licensing agreements of x86/x64 which are void is anyone buys out AMD.
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I don't see Intel playing nice with this unless they are forced to by antitrust lawsuits.
 
If the cross licensing agreement is lost, then Intel is free to charge whatever it wants for it's CPUs as they would be the only game in town. At least until M$ releases an OS that would run on AMD's buyer new platform. I'm not liking this at all.
 
Proxy said:
I see this as being a bad idea.
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And I second this.

When Intel have the performance crown, prices go up. Imagine that and the fact that AMD is now focused on another thing, say, processors for Apple or something!

One thing in huge favor of AMD is that even when they're ahead on performance, they still keep prices competitive. Of course I support a company like that.
 
wra18th said:
If the cross licensing agreement is lost, then Intel is free to charge whatever it wants for it's CPUs as they would be the only game in town. At least until M$ releases an OS that would run on AMD's buyer new platform. I'm not liking this at all.
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I thought amd had the x86-x64(amd64) license and intel had the x86. And the cross licensing agreement allowed to use each others.

Wouldn't today it be more important to have the amd64 instruction over the x86. Already it is started to be called legacy support, and wont be needed in a few generations anyway.

pardon for my lack of knowledge on this subject, correct me if i am wrong.
 
I don't see why AMD would be looking to sell, they're coming out with some impressive tech, and they just bought ATI? I'm no CEO, but it doesn't seem like now is the time to sell.
 
So I could have a Dell GPU and Dell CPU inside my Dell PC? Has anybody gotten ahold of Xzibit about this yet? :D
 
BloodyIron said:
I don't see why AMD would be looking to sell, they're coming out with some impressive tech, and they just bought ATI? I'm no CEO, but it doesn't seem like now is the time to sell.
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AMD is fighting a war that they can't win. They have been profitable like two years during their existence and more often then not have hemorrhaged money. Intel is too big, too well established, too technologically superior, and has huge market advantages based off of their partners and them doing all their manufacturing in house.

AMD tried to build their own fabs, that failed miserably as they didn't have the money to upgrade every year and during that time they didn't have the ability to re-use the old machinery for chipsets.

AMD's acquisition of ATI has allowed them to compete better with Intel and I think their long-term strategy of the markets they are competing in makes sense. But, Intel is setup so that it can win any price war because AMD can't compete on the high end (ie. high margin) products and Intel has lower manufacturing costs on all of its products then comparable AMD parts.

Dell isn't going to buy AMD because it doesn't make good business sense for Dell to buy AMD. Dell is a computer manufacturer, not a computer component manufacturer. And more people want Intel CPUs because they perform better. Dell wouldn't hurt its core business by buying up AMD.
 
BloodyIron said:
I don't see why AMD would be looking to sell, they're coming out with some impressive tech, and they just bought ATI? I'm no CEO, but it doesn't seem like now is the time to sell.
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That's just the problem ... Their CEO stepped down in January, their COO stepped down last week, and their Sr VP for corporate strategy just announced he's leaving. This has all the markings of a company throwing up a white flag hoping someone steps up to the plate and acquires them. Their ATI purchase was in '06.
 
weuntouchable said:
AMD is fighting a war that they can't win. They have been profitable like two years during their existence and more often then not have hemorrhaged money. Intel is too big, too well established, too technologically superior, and has huge market advantages based off of their partners and them doing all their manufacturing in house.

AMD tried to build their own fabs, that failed miserably as they didn't have the money to upgrade every year and during that time they didn't have the ability to re-use the old machinery for chipsets.

AMD's acquisition of ATI has allowed them to compete better with Intel and I think their long-term strategy of the markets they are competing in makes sense. But, Intel is setup so that it can win any price war because AMD can't compete on the high end (ie. high margin) products and Intel has lower manufacturing costs on all of its products then comparable AMD parts.

Dell isn't going to buy AMD because it doesn't make good business sense for Dell to buy AMD. Dell is a computer manufacturer, not a computer component manufacturer. And more people want Intel CPUs because they perform better. Dell wouldn't hurt its core business by buying up AMD.
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Meh, AMD's still very strong in the server market though, I believe. Lots of datacenters adopted the cheaper Opterons over the more costly Xeons. AMD's pretty safe regardless of their desktop market share.
 
If its true, I hope whoever buys them knows how to make proper video card drivers :p
 
AMD needs cash. They need cash badly. It is a research company like pharmaceutical companies. They invest heaily in research to produce new products, and expect to charge arm and leg for their products to get their investment back and to make a profit.

AMD is operating like they are a labour intense company with low price.

They need a Steve Job type CEO who know how to rebuild company's brand and image.

Then they can increase their price and compete with Intel.

If Dell purchases AMD, it is going to be worst. Dell may drop the unprofitable consumer desktop market, and soley focus on server, and cell phone markets.
 
Yevalht said:
Apple should buy AMD :eek:
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No!

Why?

I dont want my previously $100 AMD CPU suddenly costing $300 and then having it still cost $300 a year later.

Thank about it. That would allow Intel to then charge far more too.

No more cheap computing for anyone.:(
 
Question for you all:

Just an FYI: Dell is absolutely TINY. If Dell went to war against Intel with AMD that would be hilariously... BUT...

I think Ars said it best when they said Anyone who purchases AMD would basically be signing a fullscale war against Intel. What if a large company such as HP bought AMD? Do you think someone with large amounts could wage war against Intel?
 
arcturus said:
That's just the problem ... Their CEO stepped down in January, their COO stepped down last week, and their Sr VP for corporate strategy just announced he's leaving. This has all the markings of a company throwing up a white flag hoping someone steps up to the plate and acquires them. Their ATI purchase was in '06.
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They didn't step down. They were fired.

And that someone that may buy AMD is either Oracle or ATIC. Highly doubtful that it's DELL, but we'll see.
 
Cyraxx said:
Question for you all:

Just an FYI: Dell is absolutely TINY. If Dell went to war against Intel with AMD that would be hilariously... BUT...

I think Ars said it best when they said Anyone who purchases AMD would basically be signing a fullscale war against Intel. What if a large company such as HP bought AMD? Do you think someone with large amounts could wage war against Intel?
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Tiny ? I don't think you know what DELL is... It's bigger than AMD and it's worth quite a bit more than AMD, so DELL buying AMD isn't really the problem. The problem is that DELL has no reason to buy AMD. On the other hand, Oracle (which already showed interest in buying a chip company) or ATIC, do.
 
Silus said:
They didn't step down. They were fired.

And that someone that may buy AMD is either Oracle or ATIC. Highly doubtful that it's DELL, but we'll see.
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Oracle may be. Isn't there a rumor couple months ago on theinqury.net about Oracle wants to buy AMD?
 
Azhar said:
Meh, AMD's still very strong in the server market though, I believe. Lots of datacenters adopted the cheaper Opterons over the more costly Xeons. AMD's pretty safe regardless of their desktop market share.
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I wouldn't call 22-23% strong...but to each his own...
 
Flyboat said:
Oracle may be. Isn't there a rumor couple months ago on theinqury.net about Oracle wants to buy AMD?
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It was rumor all over the place. And Oracle wasn't aiming at AMD. It was aiming at a chip company. NVIDIA and AMD were mentioned, but NVIDIA is too expensive at this point. AMD is cheap and given the internal management crisis (they have yet to appoint a new CEO and recently fired two more top executives), is ripe for the taking.

Still, the more likely buyer is ATIC.
 
i dont care about who is buying amd. i wonder what will happen to amd ati s video cards. i like dells monitors!
 
msx said:
it would be interesting apple buying amd.
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Really doubt Apple is all that intrested. AMD is a second rate brand that needs a lot of captial for what it does and has to compete against Intel and nVidia and that means supporting PCs and Windows one way or another and using AMD chips in Macs.

Just don't see it.
 
Cyraxx said:
Question for you all:

Just an FYI: Dell is absolutely TINY. If Dell went to war against Intel with AMD that would be hilariously... BUT...

I think Ars said it best when they said Anyone who purchases AMD would basically be signing a fullscale war against Intel. What if a large company such as HP bought AMD? Do you think someone with large amounts could wage war against Intel?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call Dell tiny. AMD is the only tiny company mentioned here. Companies like HP and IBM could compete with Intel if they wanted to. They both have enough money, assets, and income to compete with Intel. Though I'd imagine they'd need at least 1 to 3 years to actually reap the benefits of such an investment financially, even if Bulldozer is a huge success.

Compare

AMD
Ranking -Unknown
Annual Revenue: 5.4 billion (FY 2009)
Employees: 10,400 (As of 2010)

Intel
Ranking -Unknown
Annual Revenue: 43.6 billion (FY 2010)
Employees: 83,500 (2008)

Dell
Ranking: 38th largest Company in the U.S.
Annual Revenue: 52.09 Billion (FY 2010)
Employees: 105,000

HP
Ranking:
Annual Revenue: 126 billion (FY 2010)
Employees: 310,000

IBM
Ranking: 20th largest U.S. / 33rd largest Global
Annual Revenue: 99.9 billion (FY2010)
Employees: 399,409

IBM is the most logical choice to purchase AMD but it won't happen. They are among the only semi-conductor manufacturers that I think could pull it off and potentially run the business effectively. Though if they did, they wouldn't necessarily need or even want Global Foundries which I believe AMD still has a large stake in.
 
wra18th said:
If the cross licensing agreement is lost, then Intel is free to charge whatever it wants for it's CPUs as they would be the only game in town. At least until M$ releases an OS that would run on AMD's buyer new platform. I'm not liking this at all.
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Win8 will run on ARM...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/jan11/01-05socsupport.mspx

The OS should be processor agnostic leaving the motherboard drivers and bios/efi to output the correct format of information.
 
msx said:
i dont care about who is buying amd. i wonder what will happen to amd ati s video cards. i like dells monitors!
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Doesn't Dell just rebrand monitors made by another company though? NEC and Mitsubishi has been supplying Dell monitors for the longest time in the past. I dunno about now.
 
msx said:
i dont care about who is buying amd. i wonder what will happen to amd ati s video cards. i like dells monitors!
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Nothing will happen. It's highly doubtful that whoever buys AMD (if anyone wants it that is), will end any of their current business lines (CPU and GPU).
The problem with any AMD buyout is the price to buy it of course, but mostly the money AMD needs to keep functioning and this includes keep paying their existent debt, which is still in the billions. No one wants to buy a debt...So whoever it is, they need deep pockets and Oracle or ATIC have very deep pockets...
 
Dan_D said:
I wouldn't call Dell tiny. AMD is the only tiny company mentioned here. Companies like HP and IBM could compete with Intel if they wanted to. They both have enough money, assets, and income to compete with Intel. Though I'd imagine they'd need at least 1 to 3 years to actually reap the benefits of such an investment financially, even if Bulldozer is a huge success.

...

IBM is the most logical choice to purchase AMD but it won't happen. They are among the only semi-conductor manufacturers that I think could pull it off and potentially run the business effectively. Though if they did, they wouldn't necessarily need or even want Global Foundries which I believe AMD still has a large stake in.
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You forgot Oracle in there, which is the 3rd or 4th largest company in the US and they already showed interest in buying a chip company!

Also, AMD's stake on GlobalFoundries is very small at this point. For a while now, that ATIC keeps buying off AMD's shares in GF. IIRC, AMD started with 30%. They own quite a bit less than that now.
 
Nanan said:
Win8 will run on ARM...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/jan11/01-05socsupport.mspx

The OS should be processor agnostic leaving the motherboard drivers and bios/efi to output the correct format of information.
Click to expand...

That doesn't mean anything. Even if they get the .NET CLR ported entirely to ARM and there is perfect binary interoperability between the x86 and ARM versions of .NET apps, there's a metric crapton of native software out there not made for the CLR that won't run unless recompiled for ARM.
 
heatlesssun said:
Really doubt Apple is all that intrested. AMD is a second rate brand that needs a lot of captial for what it does and has to compete against Intel and nVidia and that means supporting PCs and Windows one way or another and using AMD chips in Macs.

Just don't see it.
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apple could build their own cpus??
 
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