Latest Rumor Pegs Microsoft Wanting To Buy AMD

[Nille_kungen]

I hope it's false.
I remeber Nokia before Elop and microsoft and i also remember how Elop killed almost all open source projects.
I might be good for microsft but the question is if it would be good for AMD and how their costumers reacts.

[jeisom]

they were legally required to...

in fact, if the new judge hadn't been bought off, microsoft wouldn't even exist right now. Instead, it all got swept under the table by greasing some palms. Pretty good read for anyone interested.

Took me a little while, but I was able to find an article explaining it from Mar of 2010. Don't know about the judge part though. I still think it would probably be better for an investment and probably a shake-up than a straight out buy though.

[sarmad]

I would assume Intel wouldn't like to see AMD owned by MS.

[xeekei]

Ah! The annual "Who will buy AMD" speculation. This one is new.
Samsung buying AMD would give them fabs again, and would definitely give them a lot of cash. However, I would like someone smaller, like maybe STMicroelectronics.

[ElectricPrism]

Their company needs a military style router rooter job. I filled out the contact form on their website a year ago to explain to them I wanted to buy 800$ in CPU and GPU if they supported Linux better - I had to answer a 3 page long form of questions just to have a simple contact.

Whoever is making the calls is overly technical and the company is obviously not simplified enough to be productive at producing products and attaining return capitol from their investments.

I like the idea about RedHat buying AMD, what a victory that would be for Linux & Redhat as Redhat could work with Valve and provide perfect Linux drivers for Corporate and gaming customers.

Unfortunately, it'll probably be bought by someone who will kill it like Nokia was... Ahem....

[Kano]

The Nokia deal well does not really seem to be a success story. OK, MS buys AMD APUs for XBox right now, but Intel is advancing (in the iGPU speed) and Nvidia (Tegra line) too. AMD has got no fabs anymore, just IP, and is no leader in anything. Fiji is partly disappointing and Zen might be faster but will it be fast enough to sell it very often... If you need something to buy to decrease revenue feel free to do. Dedicated GFX cards might sell the next years but as soon as the die size is shrinked enough and RAM directly appied they will disappear. Next step is of course VR gaming that will require very fast GFX but will you need those in 10y?

[Aeder]

The original rumour about AMD splitting or being sold was denied by AMD itself. (http://arstechnica.com/business/2015...-reuters-says/)

So there's no reason to take this rumour seriously either.

[zanny]

I agree with the sentiment that a company like AMD doesn't just get acquired like that. It is way too big, and in way too many markets. Its not comparable to something even like Google's massive Motorola acquisition. They would break up, and maybe individual parts (x86 CPUs, GPUs, server processors, the ARM branch, etc) would be bought individually for patents and IP by some of these companies, but not the whole thing.

Also, there is no "monopoly" in Intel having x86. Its their patented and copyrighted ISA. Its their choice to do with it what they want, thats how copyright law works. I hate US copyright law, but won't argue that it isn't entirely in Intel's right to license their ISA to whoever - including nobody - they want. That isn't anti-competitive or monopolistic.

A lot of other things they do - the backroom deals with notebook vendors to keep AMD APUs from ever being in a premium product, the price gouging on consumer CPUs to always keep AMD bleeding, the standards bodies they participate in to cripple AMD's market position (they made UEFI, their x86 extensions define what AMD must adopt, and Intel have their influence in almost every interface design for computer hardware from m..2 to PCI to Thunderbolt to USB to Displayport) - those can be considered anti-competitive. But just owning a popular ISA and not licensing it out isn't anticompetitive, its just a demonstration of how awful the US copyright + patent regime is.

[stiiixy]

Indiegogo crowd-purchase of AMD?

I'M EXCITED!

[coder111]

Redhat buying AMD would be interesting. This would enable them to build 100% open source supported hardware.

However I do not see that happening- Redhat don't have enough cash, they are a pure software company, and it would impact their relationships with other haredware vendors/manufacturers.