Another outcome of the AMD / ATI deal

[jamesgoddard]

At the beginning of this year AMD coughed up $75 million for a 5 year license deal for the complete Rambus product portfolio. http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/01/03/amd_licenses_rambus/ At the time people could not work out what AMD was doing, shelling out cash for licenses they did not seem to use in there product line up….

Well, with this weeks events I think we may have some answers. With the accusation, and the merging of companies, ATI will have now inherited the rights to tuck into the Rembus product portfolio as much as they like (and there are still 4 ½ years running on the deal), this includes the high end XDR http://www.rambus.com/us/products/xdr_xdr2/xdr2.html memory that is better than current DDR style memory in just about every respect, just normally with a licensing cost to match! Will we be seeing new ATI products with memory bandwidth several times faster then there competitors can produce.

With a deal this size, it will have been on the cards for some time… Were AMD playing a joker when they got a full license from Rambus for what seems like small change now, knowing that the future use would be far higher than Rambus would expect, and thus price it for…

AMD must have had some very very good reasons to show to the banks to get a $2.5 loan, and I expect an exciting coming 12 months…. If I were Intel or Nvid I would be worried for what I did not know!

 

[p05esto]

In one year AMD/ATI will be but a blip on the hardware scene. Intel and nVidia are the big dogs (always have been) and have resources to pound the cash stretched AMD into oblivian. The merger is a desperate measure by two underdogs at the moment.

But don't get me wrong. Compition is good on so many levels - I hope they are able to compete. Don't forget that Intel/nVidia don't want AMD/ATI completely out of business (monopoly fear). But they will keep them down picking up crumbs...heck, maybe they'll even give the underdog a bone once in a while.

Funny that during the Microsoft monopoly court days Intel allowed AMD to take the lead for a couple years. Quincidence? I think not... Intel had the $$ if they wanted to outdue AMD. Big business is a strategic game.

 

[dt]

In one year AMD/ATI will be but a blip on the hardware scene. Intel and nVidia are the big dogs (always have been) and have resources to pound the cash stretched AMD into oblivian. The merger is a desperate measure by two underdogs at the moment.

But don't get me wrong. Compition is good on so many levels - I hope they are able to compete. Don't forget that Intel/nVidia don't want AMD/ATI completely out of business (monopoly fear). But they will keep them down picking up crumbs...heck, maybe they'll even give the underdog a bone once in a while.

Funny that during the Microsoft monopoly court days Intel allowed AMD to take the lead for a couple years. Quincidence? I think not... Intel had the $$ if they wanted to outdue AMD. Big business is a strategic game.

eh reminds me of the years back when amd was kicking intel in processors. big brother wanted little brother to have some fun in the processor world. little brother started to make fun of them so big brother put him in check.

same thing will happen when ati does something. nvidia will get on them about it.

i get ati because of there all in wonder video cards. tv tuner + a good video card is good with me.