
Imagination Technologies put up for sale amid Apple dispute - _anything_
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40364662
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ChuckMcM
I feel like Imagination Tech can't die fast enough. These guys _aggressively_
created patent clouds around anything and everything 3D graphic. It wasn't
until a lot of the base patents on 3D acceleration started expiring that
anyone would even consider the move Apple made. I hope that in 5 years we've
got SoC's with fully open GPUs that are at least as powerful as the old 3Dfx
Voodoo and Nvidia TNT series from the 90s.

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dogma1138
Nvidia and AMD are doing the same thing. Outside of X86 GPUs are probably the
most walled off market, you literally cannot make a GPU today without
violating a patent.

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wolfgke
> Outside of X86 GPUs are probably the most walled off market

I think FPGAs are more walled off.

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IBM
2017 was the year Apple decided they don't feel like paying for IP anymore.

I can't wait to see how the Qualcomm case plays out. I'm not a lawyer, but the
recent Supreme Court decision on Lexmark seems like a huge threat to
Qualcomm's business model.

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bryanlarsen
My cynical take: Imagination Tech's legitimate business is vulnerable to an
Apple counter-suit. Without that legitimate business weighing it down it would
be much more valuable as a patent troll.

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icanhackit
> it would be much more valuable as a patent troll

Or the threat of a counter-suit is low but they want to weaponize the company
out of spite and the low chance of recovering as a producer of new IP. My
recollection might be off but didn't Apple want to purchase Imagination but
Imagination wanted to remain an independent company, so Apple hired away their
talent instead? Or am I confusing this with what they did to Nuance?

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frou_dh
Wonder if Apple's inhouse GPUs will turn out as well as their CPUs. It's gotta
be a hell of a gig to land to work on either.

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faragon
My bet: Apple will buy Imagination Technologies.

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sweden
It would be illegal after the announcement that they would stop buying
Imagination's GPUs. Imagination's value tanked after, they wouldn't be allowed
to buy it.

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faragon
Not necessarily, e.g. if the takeover has a prime high enough for matching
previous stock price. Or buying IT for cheap, without using any of their
chips, just for having their patents.

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Grazester
Google seems to be interested in hardware, hiring an ex Apple chip designer.
Maybe they would be interested in this sale.

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samfisher83
For 500 mil it should be a no brainier. Its like a rounding error for google.

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rwmj
ImgTech has been a bit of a basket case for a long time. Why did they buy MIPS
for $100m? Why have they just (last year) built a huge posh new HQ when they
were losing money? I don't think it's something Google would want.

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fordred
As a former employee of PowerVR, work began around the start of 2011, and was
done in (at least) 3 phases. They finished the 2nd phase around the start of
2014, but I'm not sure when the final phase was completed. Plans were
definitely made during the golden-years.

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thrillgore
Edit: I misspoke, I had the wrong company in my sights. Sorry folks.

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kimixa
Got a source on that? As far as I'm aware Imagination have never been in the
controller/haptic feedback market.

EDIT: Are you thinking of "Immersion" [1]? Completely different company.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony)

