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Rumor: Microsoft is interested in buying AMD
- Thread starter statham
- Start date
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killer rin
Member
I guess it kind of makes sense considering their expansions into device and server territory.
But it is the BACKBONE!
Yes, they can fuck up Vulkan. And they can fuck Sony, Nvidia, Intel and Steam also, it all adds up.
cartographer
Member
We live in a non-perfect world where this is already common practice. Sony has camera sensors in smartphones made by other companies. AMD is offering Intel CPUs in their Quantum box. Samsung sells to countless competitors. Microsoft develops for other OS, even in a market (like mobile) where their own OS struggles. It's not about idealism. It's about money.
By not selling your best offering (or selling your second best offering for a higher price than similar level technologies from competitors), you likely lose business. These are mostly custom SoCs with relatively older tech, with improvements here and there built to specification. If you are offering a lower level of tech for a similar price, you won't get the bid.
There are plenty of companies who might not be interested in consumer versions of APUs now that will be much more interested when a console manufacturer comes to them with a potential contract of dozens of millions of units.
Turning down that business isn't in the best interest of making money.
Unless you have more specifics about the relationship and / or licenses involved with Vulkan's preliminary work being based on Mantle, then I believe it's safe to assume this isn't a real threat. Vulkan is Khronos-wide at this point and as far as I know has only been described as being past the boost AMD's work on Mantle gave in the beginning. I don't really believe the other Khronos companies would jump on board if this was a possibility.
The potential for bullshit is there, and given Microsoft's previous track record, it's worrying.
Microsoft has spent decades dealing with antitrust lawsuits, and in recent years is trending towards making their proprietary tech more open, not less. The last thing they'd do in the event of an AMD buyout is make moves to cripple the competition, whether that's consoles or APIs.
Tallshortman
Member
There are almost assuredly long term contracts in place MS would have to honor, either the continued supply of parts or possibly a massive penalty for breach of contract.
thewhitehawk
Member
When Elop joined Nokia was still the worlds biggest seller of smartphones and most of the measures he made essentially stirred the company's value downwards after it had stabilized and slightly grown in the two years prior to his hiring.
http://bgr.com/2013/09/03/microsoft-nokia-merger-analysis/
Just when Nokia had finally gotten its act together and put a out a phone with truly modern software and competitive specs against the iPhone, Elop cancelled any further development of the platform and released the phone anyways even though it was DOA.
Not to mention that Microsoft gave Elop 25 million payout when he rejoined them.
There's no solid evidence to prove that Elop was indeed conspiring with Microsoft to enable them to purchase Nokia for a much lower value, but I'll be damned if every single sign doesn't point in that direction.
Gotta love knee jerk reactions.
cartographer
Member
Just the AMD savior of the month.
Enlighten me.
If you think corporations don't "take sides" you're very wrong. They care about that stuff more than the deluded fanboy.
lmao what potential?
It'd make no sense to have Sony turn to Nvidia. It'd be the opposite of promoting competition.
What HW effort did they cut?
The Artisan
Member
this
When you consider that the only Smartphone makers that actually made a profit are Samsung and apple, and the others, even HTC, struggle, I can't possibly agree with your statement. The only reason Nokia was still selling well at that time was due to the tail end of the feature phone and emerging market phone. Elop's changes kept Nokia afloat and helped them make the best phones they have done in years.
Schweinehund
Member
We'll have to see but I feel like MS has been moving toward open source given .net opening up recently. I think they realize they need this to compete. Nadella's still new in his position but I think he's more open towards open source than Ballmer ever was.
EventHorizon
Member
AMD gave the Mantle specification to the Khronos Group "with no strings attached" in order to create Vulkan. The most AMD could do to "fuck with" Vulkan would be to withhold their future support. Well I guess they could do worse if they pretended to support Vulkan but instead tried to gum up the works.
Here is a YouTube link discussing Mantle's contribution to Vulkan. (@2m 17s for relevant quote if direct link doesn't work)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF7gENO6CI8&feature=youtu.be&t=2m17s
Read:
Link
Soak in that last paragraph. Those all enable productivity technology.
It's not a huge leap to assume bringing GPU R&D for cloud computing in house may have significant cost savings over time for Microsoft as they vie to maintain their leadership position in cloud-based productivity software and services.
I'm really LTTP here but a more viable scenario would see AMD spin off its GPU business in to a separate entity which could then be sold to the highest bidder. Sort of like a reverse ATI acquisition. Discussed here.
Currently AMD denies that anything is in the works but they have to at least be thinking about all possible solutions to the problems that they have. I for one don't see AMD suddenly becoming stronger just because they slim down but someone is obviously mulling it over.
Currently AMD denies that anything is in the works but they have to at least be thinking about all possible solutions to the problems that they have. I for one don't see AMD suddenly becoming stronger just because they slim down but someone is obviously mulling it over.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
I mean, yes Nokia was kinda looking OK in 2010... but so was fucking RIM (BlackBerry); they had just had their highest selling year ever. I don't think there was a captain in the world that could steer either of those ships to safety.
It certainly could happen I but this bit...
It's an everyday occurrence for companies to exchange goods/money with companies that are direct competitors in some area and if this was to happen, the suggestion that it would affect either company to such an extent is pure nonsense. That reasoning was daft enough, all on it's own, to stop me clicking on the link to read their remaining stupidity.
I'd also say that if this did happen that I'm really not convinced that the console business would play any part in them considering doing this as I really don't see that end of the business being Microsoft's priority. I can see the reasons in them wanting to own a company such as AMD and I can see even more reasons for them wanting to do that than I can see for them wanting to be in the console business.
It's an incredibly expensive and highly volatile line of business and I see it making more sense for them to start producing Xbox chips for PCs nest time if this was true. I can't imagine that Sony really wants to be laying out billions on developing another new console but I don't really see them as having the same alternatives that Microsoft have.
It would be interesting to read up if proper news hits about this at some point though.
...makes absolutely no sense at all.
It's an everyday occurrence for companies to exchange goods/money with companies that are direct competitors in some area and if this was to happen, the suggestion that it would affect either company to such an extent is pure nonsense. That reasoning was daft enough, all on it's own, to stop me clicking on the link to read their remaining stupidity.
I'd also say that if this did happen that I'm really not convinced that the console business would play any part in them considering doing this as I really don't see that end of the business being Microsoft's priority. I can see the reasons in them wanting to own a company such as AMD and I can see even more reasons for them wanting to do that than I can see for them wanting to be in the console business.
It's an incredibly expensive and highly volatile line of business and I see it making more sense for them to start producing Xbox chips for PCs nest time if this was true. I can't imagine that Sony really wants to be laying out billions on developing another new console but I don't really see them as having the same alternatives that Microsoft have.
It would be interesting to read up if proper news hits about this at some point though.
Crayon
Member
I want to start saying this now but I can't come up with a good example.
"You don't understand X is the BACKBONE of Y."
There's potential in there but I got nothin.
I started doing GPGPU computing back in 2005 and am quite familiar with machine learning.
The thing about GPU computing, is that it really illustrated the power and cost-efficiency of using commodity consumer hardware (or HW derived from it, with the main research spending still on the consumer side) to do HPC. I don't see why you'd need to build that HW yourself to offer services on top of it, or even large advantages which could be derived from doing so.
They can't "fuck up Vulkan". Unfettered access to mantle has already been given to Khronos group by AMD themselves unconditionally, which is the foundation of Vulkan, and the development is also by Khronos group. AMD or MS-AMD would be but one voice amongst scores of companies involved in its development and standards. MS aren't even a part of the Khronos group right now
wumster3000
Member
MS would not get the x86 license. AMD would forfeit the license if the company is sold and Intel would be the sole owner if I'm not mistaken.
Read this
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/88055
Specifically the chapter titled "dawn of shaders".
Now imagine what happened to 3dfx when that happened. It was essentially the beginning of the end for a lot of graphics cards who had not implemented the ATI/Nvidia vendor specific features MS went with in D3D.
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Dumbest post I've seen here in a while, especially the first two points.
1. Contracts, how do they work?
2. They'd be sued into oblivion by Sony.
3dfx had their own bundle of issues that can't simply be pushed on d3d. That's a totally different thread though.
0.1.1.2.3.5.8.13.21.34.55
Banned
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The days of bleeding billions to prop up Xbox are done. Investors aren't having that shit.
They'd just be saving Sony anyway.
That's an interesting read. I can still remember John Carmack telling me (not personally, in a magazine) that OpenGL was the way to go and I was happy to listen to him when he said it.
Intel licenses AMD's x86-64 extension in turn, which also terminates on buyout as part of the same agreement. And Intel needs x86-64 more than AMD needs x86, so they'll be at the negotiating table getting a new contract written up with any theoretical buyer before the ink dries.
Just using my imagination...
MS will continue building more datacenters, and maybe more devices, that will require graphics cards in significant volume. They maybe could even sell their GPUs to hardware manufacturers at discounts in exchange for deals where MS software and services must be featured on the hardware.
Additionally, I imagine there is room for tighter integration between datacenter hardware and online services for improved performance, efficiency, and security. Those three qualities are likely among primary drivers of business decisions when choosing where to safely store data, as well as the capabilities afforded turn data into useful insights at the lowest cost. I'm certain Microsoft is looking for a competitive edge as they bet their entire business on the cloud.
*shrugs*
I'm by no means attributing the downfall of 3dfx on d3d alone if at all. Just talking about examples where features were vendor specific and/or software/api specific.
They just sold their advertising division and Bing maps. Meanwhile they seem to be hell bent on getting Hololens to market and have just introduced 3 new Surface Pro 3s. Seems like hardware is in favor once again.
Shareholders don't really care about the profit for Microsoft, the shareholders are more concerned about what Microsoft's business model in 10 years time is going to be realistically. AKA they're hoping Microsoft will transform its business model into something like Adobe's.
The console division won't really move the dial with them, and any fool can see that supporting Microsoft's efforts to increase the Xbox's install base is the right business move
The console division won't really move the dial with them, and any fool can see that supporting Microsoft's efforts to increase the Xbox's install base is the right business move
If this is true...I can't help but wonder if MS is going to make a long-term play for self-driving car technology, specifically creating taylored suite with a processor and accompanying software (OS). With their knowledge of spacial processing Nvidia is already developing their Tegra processors for the future market. MS has the talent pool to develop software for such applications and AMD could put them in a position to be a big player in this developing industry.
Why would they want to compete with Intel on the other part of AMD? They make a boat load of cash with intel.
I am just not seeing where this helps them now. Hardware is irrelevant and makes little profit and in fact requires significant continuous investment and training.
Look at their VR strategy...work with everyone. They learned for the HD DVD vs Blue Ray crap years ago. Hardware business sucks. Not seeing this as a way to go unless they got some kind of idea on a device that will sell 100s of millions. The exception of course is Apple which is a hardware business but they are in a niche and but they do make bank. MS is all over the place...which you could look as diversified. Maybe thats their reason to invest down that hardware hole. Man I would want no part of AMD.
I am just not seeing where this helps them now. Hardware is irrelevant and makes little profit and in fact requires significant continuous investment and training.
Look at their VR strategy...work with everyone. They learned for the HD DVD vs Blue Ray crap years ago. Hardware business sucks. Not seeing this as a way to go unless they got some kind of idea on a device that will sell 100s of millions. The exception of course is Apple which is a hardware business but they are in a niche and but they do make bank. MS is all over the place...which you could look as diversified. Maybe thats their reason to invest down that hardware hole. Man I would want no part of AMD.
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