
Microsoft might be interested in buying AMD - frik
http://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/microsoft-is-interested-to-buy-advanced-micro-devices-source/
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bepotts
Why is no reputable site reporting this? Every thread I've seen talking about
this subject referenced this shady website.

Looks like click bait to me.

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magicmu
I agree, seems like it's just some hype. It would be pretty damn surprising to
see AMD sell off given the various contracts in play (as others have
commented).

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SloopJon
My understanding is that AMD and Intel's cross-licensing agreement would
terminate if AMD was acquired. Previously this would have discouraged
acquisition, but at this point I wonder if Intel needs AMD64 more than AMD
needs IA32, SSE, etc. AMD's acquirer could renegotiate the agreement knowing
that it could walk away from x86 and focus on ARM and GPUs.

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acd
"It does not really need server processors or high-end graphics cards."

I think that Microsoft needs server processors for their Azure cloud, with
enough volumes Microsoft could undercut all other cloud providers on hardware
acquisition costs if they own a manufacturer of CPUs, Chipsets, GPUs for
OpenCL applications.

If you build your own servers from a OEM manufacturer like Quanta, Compal and
Foxconn which by the way makes most branded servers anyway and you then put
your own CPU, GPU and components motherboards in there you have a lower
acquisitions costs on your cloud computing compared to the others.

Thus it makes sense for Microsoft on Xbox & Azure and possibly hardware for
Windows tablets.

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grub5000
My main question about this is basically: can AMD produce anything that's
actually competitive with Intel?

I think their (now-outsourced) fab process is so far behind that they just
can't produce anything Microsoft would want on a CPU level.

Though now that I think about it, the APUs would certainly be more competitive
for certain types of machine learning processing.

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zanny
They have had all their recent APUs and GPUs fabbed at TSMC on its 28nm node.
Dunno what their most recent GF product line was, last I remember was Richland
3 years ago.

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DanBlake
Microsoft is pretty much one of the only companies that could acquire AMD and
turn it around. Much how people complained of nvidia gameworks giving it a
unfair advantage against AMD, microsoft has the ability to develop in house
features only ATI/AMD hardware could take advantage of initially and give
nvidia/intel a real run for their money

It definitely helps that microsoft could likely get a significant discount on
the purchase price as well since amd is seen as dieing. The arrangement
between intel and MS is very old and involves significant cash flowing both
ways. I imagine as microsoft has more internal pressure to show more profits
that this line of thinking was bound to come up

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the-dude
Ah, like they turned around Nokia. Nice.

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SG-
These rumours remind me so much of Apple back in the 90s, just search for AMD
buyout and every major company gets listed.

More importantly and maybe the reason a buyout hasn't happened is the x86
license and how it likely can't be transferred to another company.

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monk_e_boy

        > Microsoft has already paid AMD around $1.26 billion for
        > Xbox One chips. The acquisition of AMD could save it
        > around a billion per year on Xbox One chips alone
    

Uh, that doesn't quite add up. AMD really make that much per chip? And
wouldn't a fair chunk of that money also go into R&D...

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drzaiusapelord
That's only $125 per Xbox sold, which doesn't sound like a lot to me. That
includes the CPU and GPU in the APU format which is pretty much the bread and
butter of the entire system. On a PC, a CPU and GPU combo with comparable
specs at the time of release would be what? 3x that?

I buy mid-range video cards exclusively and that's a good $150-200 with tax
right there. I can't imagine also getting a competitive CPU tossed in for that
amount. Hell, my PC can't play much at 1080p and the consoles pretty much play
everything at 1080p. Granted, my rig is a couple years old, but its kinda
amazing how powerful this generation of consoles are.

Sounds like MS and Sony are getting a bargain here.

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6x9equals42
PS4/XBONE mostly run games at 720p or 900p at 30fps, which isn't great by PC
standards. A new $150-$200 dedicated card would be able to hit 1080p/60fps
with comparable quality settings. In the sub-$600 space consoles are a
bargain, but they have a lot of limitations compared to a slightly more
expensive PC.

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noir_lord
As a entirely Linux user this would be worrying, I'm not convinced Microsoft
owning an entire "vertical" would bode well for us, even the new shiny
Microsoft of Tomorrow.

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astrodust
There's always Intel, ARM, MIPS and others to fill the gap.

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zanny
None of them have shown any desire to support open firmware. Intel makes SSDs,
Wifi cards, CPUs, and motherboard chipsets that all have binary blob firmware
you cannot audit or trust.

AMD really only makes GPUs with blobs, and that is probably more in the ATI
legacy than anything. They have been pretty good about coreboot support of
their vanilla chipsets for years, even if it is usually delayed several months
to a year post release.

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pgeorgi
current gen AMD chipsets require binary components on the CPU ("Binary PI")
for RAM init, like Intel. And like Intel, they now have a separate CPU running
signed code (Platform Security Processor, ARM based).

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higherpurpose
Not completely happy about this, especially as it introduces some conflict not
just in the Windows ecosystem, but also with Sony's Playstation 4.

However, if no one else is interested in buying AMD, then that's probably
still better than AMD remaining independent (and dying). Does Microsoft have
the necessary chip expertise and more importantly _commitment_ to compete toe-
to-toe with Intel, though?

The very first thing I'd like to see Microsoft (or whoever ends up buying AMD)
do is manufacture the latest CPUs and GPUs on the most cutting edge non-Intel
process technology available (which seems to be owned by Samsung right now).
That along with the new high-performance Zen core should at least give AMD a
fighting chance against Intel. Some overhauled, easier to understand branding
of AMD's chips probably wouldn't hurt.

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dragonwriter
> Does Microsoft have the necessary chip expertise and more importantly
> commitment to compete toe-to-toe with Intel, though?

Do they need that deep of chip expertise -- beyond what they'd get by
acquiring AMD -- to compete with Intel? If they've got AMD, they can drive
their own instruction set evolution and tie Windows-compatibility
certification to their instruction set, and force Intel to follow along.

With Windows "runs best on Genuine Microsoft processors", and ARM making
inroads everywhere else, what's Intel going to do?

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nimos
Their market cap is less than what Microsoft paid for Minecraft. Although they
have another 2b in debt... I thought the x86 cross-license agreement prevented
this though?

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theandrewbailey
You mean the x86 deal they have with Intel? Intel tried to sue AMD when AMD
spun off their chip fabs into Global Foundries, but Intel lost. Besides, AMD
has a gun to Intel, due to Intel's AMD64 (64-bit x86) license with AMD.
Destroying AMD's ability to produce x86 chips might make them retaliate.

Edit: ...or renegotiate. Having AMD producing x86 CPUs significantly reduces
government antitrust attention towards Intel.

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fleitz
The flip side is that with MS as sole client, they could only make AMD64 chips
which would mean that intel would have to stop producing x64 chips.

If you don't need 386 compat the cross licensing deal becomes a gun pointed at
Intel's head.

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theandrewbailey
Except that won't work. 386 compatibility is required, since AMD64 is an
extension to it, not a replacement. One needs an x86 foundation to build a
workable AMD64 CPU upon.

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saosebastiao
This article is rumormill clickbait (and likely complete bullshit), but it
actually would be an incredibly smart thing for them to do, assuming they
could keep the x86 licensing deal.

The variable manufacturing cost of making chips is tiny...maybe $3-5 per x86
chip. The rest of the expense of production comes from amortizing the cost of
design and plant setup...the majority of which is caused by the need for so
many variants for the consumer segment.

So if Microsoft dumped the consumer-focused CPU and GPU segments, they could
_drastically_ reduce the design and plant setup costs of production, probably
by an order of magnitude or more. All they would need is their existing XBox
chips, and a handful a handful of heavyweight server chips. With much lower
design and plant setup costs, combined with extremely high volume production,
it isn't hard to believe they can drive down the total cost per chip to
$10-$20.

And at those price levels, they could likely undercut the PS4 as well as all
the other cloud vendors in their respective segments.

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theandrewbailey
> If Microsoft bought AMD, then Sony would be faced with a bad set of choices:
> put money in Microsoft’s pocket every time it sells a PlayStation, or try to
> create an entirely new platform by using technologies from Intel, Nvidia,
> ARM or Imagination Technologies.

It seems like everyone is putting money in MS's pocket, with all the patent
licensing they do. NVidia has stated that they will never do a console-
specific chip again. That said, I don't think that they would have a problem
with supplying an off-the-shelf Tegra model in a console for 10 years. High-
end Intel GPUs don't exist (at least not outside of Intel), but might by the
next console generation.

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anonymfus
Also Microsoft pays Sony for Blu-ray every time it sells Xbox One.

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gtrubetskoy
Though this would be quite an audacious multi-year project, Microsoft actually
is the best positioned company currently to compete with Apple. I've never
been a Microsoft fan, but I actually think this would be a very good thing for
the current state of personal computing, both desktop and mobile.

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astrodust
Having another Apple-like company, one that takes its entire stack seriously,
from hardware to user experience, would be a big win for the industry.

Although I like Apple's products a lot, I'm constantly dismayed that other
companies can't keep up. It's like the Chicago Bulls in their dominant era
where there was basically no other team that could touch them, or Ferrari's F1
team at their peak where they'd basically never lose.

Industries succeed when there's serious competition. Intel _had_ to innovate
because AMD was going to eat their lunch. Nikon can't take a break or Canon
will trounce them.

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rbanffy
Well... I suppose Intel would not be very happy with the arrangement. They may
step up their already excellent Linux support.

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x5n1
Ok so we will only have Intel when it comes to desktop and laptop processors
and running anything but Windows. Great.

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Xylemon
I also hear they want to start doing binary blobs and ditch their open source
drivers. Yay!

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bpye
This isn't really new, the difference is the binary blob is being at runtime
instead of being part of your UEFI image or whatever, Intel have surely had
"binary blobs" before, possibly in some write only memory too.

