VIA has signed a deal to sell off S3 Graphics to smartphone manufacturer HTC for $300 Million
Wednesday Taiwan-based x86 processor platform developer VIA Technologies said that it signed a definitive agreement to sell all of its shareholding in S3 Graphics to smartphone manufacturer HTC.
The company originally acquired S3 Graphics back in 2001 with the intention to accelerate integration of graphics capabilities with its processor and chipset products. But by 2005, S3 Graphics was unable to acquire the funds it needed to stay afloat (aka undercapitalized), thus private investment company WTI Investment International, Ltd. (“WTI”) stepped in as an additional investor to help fund the operations and R&D initiatives. Cher Wang, Chairman of VIA, is a significant shareholder of WTI.
"Under terms of the agreement with HTC, total consideration for all outstanding shares of S3 Graphics will be US$300 million," VIA said in an announcement. "Of which, VIA will receive US$147 million; and WTI will receive US$153 million. VIA will recognize a capital gain of US$ $37 million and paid-in-capital of US$115 million in this transaction."
"The transaction would allow VIA to monetize a portion of its rich IP portfolio, yet retain its graphics capabilities to support the development and sale of its processors and chipsets," said Tzu-mu Lin, Senior Vice President and Board Director of VIA. "We wish to thank WTI for its capital contribution to support S3 Graphics since 2005."
Although the proposed transaction has been given the green light by VIA, WTI and HTC board of directors, it will still be subject to regulatory approvals and "other customary conditions." The deal is expected to be sealed before the end of 2011.
I had a old motherboard with s3 graphics, I had to run notepad on low settings.
I had a old motherboard with s3 graphics, I had to run notepad on low settings.
Imageon was discontinued, and not sold...
Indeed. Two turkeys do not make an eagle.
Overall they were a decent "budget" vender back in the day with really good 2D acceleration. Via only bought them for their 2D acceleration tech so that Via could produce all-in-one boards. Same reason they acquired Cyrix. These days none of that is needed so Via just shedding it and letting HTC use it for smartphone / tablet integration.
And yes I would absolutely love to see a Via Nano x2 + Tegra type integrated product.
not really, cause at the beginning 3dfx couldn't stand alone. It needed a 2d card to work. Only with the second generation did it get challenged, and the '16bit only' limitation of voodoo made other options better (despite performing worse). In the end, it was the advent of directx and true 2d and 3d capable graphics cards from ati and nvidia that made the difference. Before then s3 was fine. It had enough memory, and was sufficiently vesa compliant (means almost all dos games would work without needing univesa or anything else).
in short 3dfx might've started the 3d wave, but can't be credited for S3's failure to keep up.
Good riddance, I'll say.