

Microsoft Has Acquisition Deal with Nvidia - wslh
http://www.osnews.com/story/24824/Microsoft_Has_Acquisition_Deal_with_Nvidia

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terrellm
Not an acquisition deal as in "signing the contract this week" like with Skype
but rather a deal for the opportunity to match an offer in the event that
another company wants to acquire Nvidia.

From the article:

 _The deal gives Microsoft the exclusive right to match any offer for 30% or
more of Nvidia's outstanding shares by a third-party." The agreement appears
to be over 10 years old, dating back to the time of the contract for the GPU
of the original X-Box._

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Jach
So the "exclusive right" in this case is that Nvidia has to notify MS of any
offers and their amount?

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ansy
Yes and no. Microsoft's right is Nvidia must sell to Microsoft or nobody if
Microsoft matches a competing bid for 30% or more of nVidia. A side effect of
that is that nVidia has to inform Microsoft of any deals of that size.

This doesn't really do anything other than keep nVidia out of the hands of a
competitor. It doesn't sound like this contract really helps if Microsoft
wanted to buy nVidia without other buyers involved.

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podperson
It's a sign of how vulnerable Microsoft is feeling. If Nvidia were purchased
by Apple (or even HP, say) then Microsoft might suddenly find itself trying to
compete in the mobile market without access to a credible hardware stack.

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nettdata
Not at all. The article says the agreement is over 10 years old, and to me
seems to have been a smart move on Microsoft's part.

Basically, they recognized that they were very reliant on NVidia's technology,
and while buying from NVidia is cheaper than making it themselves, they
mitigated risk of losing that option by giving them the chance to pony up to
keep any other company, competitor or not, from changing things.

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astrodust
Would be clever if they could fight off the PS4 using this sort of angle. Too
bad that the video hardware industry would collapse to just AMD though.

