It's Time For Samsung To Buy AMD, And AMD Should Let It (Op-Ed)

[bruhthakuga]

If these is an issue with the X86 license transfer then nVidia sell themself to AMD for a dollar (provided nVidia's staff is in control).

 

[Drejeck]

What if nVidia acquired AMD so that they can make X86 CPUs that'll compete with Intel's Core products. It seems that Intel wouldn't sell X86 licensing to nVidia because they are too much competition, this way they'll have AMDs license to work with.

Antitrust rules can't permit to have one player in a free market, otherwise it's monopole

 

[mapesdhs]

Drejeck,

That's the only reason why AMD still exists, ie. Intel could have put AMD into
the dust long ago, but it's well aware that AMD failing completely is not in Intel's
interests, hence the lack of major CPU steups since SB, ditto any real moves
on pricing. Intel didn't need to compete that much, and doing so to the extent
it's clearly capable of would not be in their interests as monopoly measures
would kick in if AMD died. Hence, AMD plods on, an ineffectual competitor
that's never made a consistent profit.

Meanwhile it's no surprise we now see comments about some future AMD
product that will save the day. The fanboys were saying that about BD and
look what happened, total disaster. As for people who have shares in AMD,
that's a big mistake, owning shares from a company in which one has an
emotional investment; one just ends up believing what one wishes will be
true, rather than making a level headed business decision whether to hold
or sell. I know, I made the same mistake with SGI shares before the company
went bust & was bought by Rackable.

Also, imagine you're a chip design engineer at Intel, your passion is developing
new tech, pushing it further. It must be really annoying being told to hold back
because market issues mean releasing something that would completely
demolish AMD is not permitted by the company for whom you work. In that
sense, I bet Intel's chip engineers hope AMD can get their act together just
as much as the AMD fans do, because then the designers can be let out
of the bottle once more & finally we'll have some real innovation. Until then,
desktop CPU tech is stuck in a hole. Overall, nothing has really moved on
since SB/Z68.

The bigger problem with desktop PCs is historical & can't be fixed, ie. the
dominant OS should never have been allowed to become dependent on a
single chip arch, that was dumb.

Ian.

 

[tomfreak]

mapesdhs,

there is no stopping intel's engineers to hold back, all they need is to turn the focus back to single threaded performance. for ex. An ultra fast dual core Intel that is almost as fast as a quad core Haswell is not going to kill AMD.

 

[rdc85]

Why people think Samsung would be a savior for AMD is beyond me.....

IMO..
They have cash that AMD lack of.. "innovation" need budget, some best in mind still need to make living..
we don't know how many design fail in Intel test lab before they get the "perfect" one...
Intel can allowed some design/project fail and only pick the best one because they have money for it..
AMD unfortunately cannot.. (whose to blame, the management?, Intel?, the consumer?, not matters now)

Samsung have foundries that "somewhat" on par or not much behind Intel..
low power, efficiency, performance will better, not mention price need to be payed per chip..

it's a good news for AMD but for Samsung?
I doubt they wanna invest in declining x86 (x64) desktop market..
so their patents only worth so much..

AMD ATI (radeon) may worth for it, they can try integrated it like what NVIDIA do,
but again is it worth it? only Samsung board of Director can decide it,
(well they are payed for that, to see the BIG picture)

edit: forget to add..
about integrating x86 core to mobile like Intel do is proven cannot bring profit..
(Intel lost money there)..
It may be powerful but came with expense of high power requirement and
higher price to make.. Intel basically sold those chip with very slim margin if not at loss..
(rumors)

 

[reevvapgau]

I do not think this will happen because it is a fundamentally bad idea at this point and there are likely many bright people at Samsung who know this. Why do I believe it is a bad idea? Because x86/Windoze and x86-84/Winblows is a dying platform. Three rather important points should tell you why buying AMD would be a bad deal for Samsung (or anyone):

1) Android is based on a rather modified version of the Linux kernel.

2) Chrome OS and Chromebooks are based on a rather unmodified version of the Linux kernel. You can take a cheap Chromebook and replace the OS with any major Linux distribution and it just works because all the hardware is fully supported by GNU/Linux. All the free software for GNU/Linux works because it is all open source and mostly just a matter of recompiling it.

Point 3: Microsoft are already moving away from the Intel/Windows lock-in with their rather crippled ARM version of Windows. From what I have read this Windows version is rather useless but it shows what direction they are moving.

As someone who has been using GNU/Linux for 10+ years and haven't used Windows since Windows 95 I personally don't care if I run my GNU/Linux on x86-64 or an ARM chip. If someone were to release a ARM motherboard with 6 SATA ports and standard RAM slots so I could keep using standard harddrives and RAM and it had the latest generation ARM CPU and GPU then I would buy that, switch to it and never look back.

I am aware that just switching to ARM, just like that, without any issue.. is something which does not work for those of you who are using Windows. For us using GNU/Linux it's no issue at all, really. We can just switch. And all we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the GNU World Order. Microsoft and their Windows product is all that is holding the PC desktop and server platforms stuck to x86 - but Windows is loosing it's grip. This is why they are dipping their goes in the ARM platform with their latest Windows series: They know that the game is essentially over for "Wintel" anyway and they would rather have their customers switch to ARM+Windows than ARM+GNU/Linux.

Samsung buying ARM would make sense if you think x86-84 has a long future ahead of it. My take on it is that it doesn't.

 

[Creme]

I'd rather see ARM buy AMD, and then we could have ARMD. Awesome.

A57s with Radeons.

 

[smleth]

Actually, HP did do that. haha, but, it's nothing like that. AMD is not a PC manufacturer. They make 2 major components, and Samsung makes several others that is sells out to OEM. This would just add to their portfolio. I think it would be a great match.

 

[cd000]

I don't think AMD has any intention of selling now. Why would they? Freesync monitors are coming to market this quarter. Which should boost GPU sales.
AMD also has the R9 3xx GPUs coming, and It wouldn't surprise me if the timing is real close to after those monitors start hitting the market.
A bit later in the year Carrizo will be out. Yes, the jury is still out on that one, but having fresh APUs out can't hurt either, especially if they can get some tablet wins.
And then 14nm Zen in 2016. Seems to me they have enough product in the pipeline to sustain themselves to at least see if Zen is the CPU we have been waiting for.

 

[f-14]

worst idea i have ever heard unless samsung is going to fire every former ATI exec and dump the entire pc line up of computing that is not mobile. mobile as an industry is the only one growing, and guess what it's replacing..... wired fixed location computing.
every chip maker should be exiting the desktop market by 2017 by near almost 100% (figure 97% as only graphics/cad designers are going to need that raw compute power of none mobile)

mobile is freedom and adds huge amounts of flexibility wired desktop can't even compete against right now, and mobile is growing by 300% in devices every single year for the last 25 years moores law still applies, the only place you'll see it right now is in mobile. i finally completed the research for my financial investments and i am kicking myself for not having seen this obvious trend 15 years ago with the mobile phones and then the first iphone. that's when every one should have started abandoning the desktop market. qualcomms shares have split and grown like best buys did in the 90's. you'd be forest gump in about 5 years from now if you had.

 

[rav_]

It's time for Tomshardware.com to sell!

For any news outlet that portrays itself as a respectable press entity, there is a very important rule that states that they should actually only do press stuff, and always in an >>>UNBIAS<<< way.

It very much seams that Tomshardware.com is now in the business of Enterprise Sabotage, and has nothing to do with and of the real journalistic rules of conduct and morality.
This article is nothing more than starting damaging rumors about AMD, because they very well know how stocks react to such rumors. If this was a first occurrence, it could have meant something else, but this is like the finishing backstabbing dagger, following long years of harassment and bias against AMD.

It is therefore a perfect time for tomshardware.com to sell all its assets and brand, to someone who is in the press business.

It's time for Tomshardware.com to sell!

For any news outlet that portrays itself as a respectable press entity, there is a very important rule that states that they should actually only do press stuff, and always in an >>>UNBIAS<<< way.

It very much seams that Tomshardware.com is now in the business of Enterprise Sabotage, and has nothing to do with and of the real journalistic rules of conduct and morality.
This article is nothing more than starting damaging rumors about AMD, because they very well know how stocks react to such rumors. If this was a first occurrence, it could have meant something else, but this is like the finishing backstabbing dagger, following long years of harassment and bias against AMD.

It is therefore a perfect time for tomshardware.com to sell all its assets and brand, to someone who is in the press business.

It's time for Tomshardware.com to sell!

For any news outlet that portrays itself as a respectable press entity, there is a very important rule that states that they should actually only do press stuff, and always in an >>>UNBIAS<<< way.

It very much seams that Tomshardware.com is now in the business of Enterprise Sabotage, and has nothing to do with and of the real journalistic rules of conduct and morality.
This article is nothing more than starting damaging rumors about AMD, because they very well know how stocks react to such rumors. If this was a first occurrence, it could have meant something else, but this is like the finishing backstabbing dagger, following long years of harassment and bias against AMD.

It is therefore a perfect time for tomshardware.com to sell all its assets and brand, to someone who is in the press business.

@nickul

This piece is MEANT to be biased. It is an OP-ED piece. SO don;t get your panties into a twist.

The purpose is to stimulate discussion, debate certainly the author has not said written anything that has already been discussed at the nether levels of both AMD and Samsung management at sometime or other.

As far as dumping on Tom's Hardware. Grow up.

 

[anthony8989]

Samsung's bottomless wallet could save any company on the planet - this article means nothing!

 

[rav_]

I dont think the writer understands how much money AMD is making off consoles. They also just signed a contract with Nintendo. All Samsung needs to do to help AMD is contract their x86 chips for what computers they still make and use the mobile AMD chips in tablets in place of Quallcomm. You Just create a great relationship with AMD and you both benefit. To have control of a company you dont necesarily have to purchase it in whole.

even in computers most consumer will see intel sticker first because they were associate with the best. sure it is nice to help AMD to market their product but samsung will also care if the customer pick other brand because of it is not intel based. also the other problem was AMD themselves. when Rory read have the helm on of the first thing he do was shun away OEM that did not intend to sell AMD based product in large volume to minimize the company's bleed.

as for mobile did AMD really have solution for it? i've seen a few device based on mullin but it seems none of them were tablet. also instead of AMD chip samsung best interest is to push their own Exynos in their tablet.

AMD is earning approximately 50% of it's revenue from 2 customers. Sony and Microsoft. That is NOT a good position to be in especially when a 3rd customer provides for a rather large chunk of AMD's graphics revenue. That of course is Apple and that relationship can change.

 

[OneFai]

Maybe Microsoft can buy AMD.

 

[John Lindsay]

sadly the OP is rather intel slanted -As for rapidly losing revenue? quarter 2 2014 was an increase and quarter 3 was flat with quarter 4 up 9% from previous. how the heck is an increase in revenue translated into losing it?? GloFO is not behind on FINFet - TSMC are dragging up the rear this time , with Intel and GLoFo both in series production; so what they using samsung process at glofo? its a samrt move actually - since samsung have allready worked out the `kinks`. The OP doesnt understand process shrink in regards to ARM - intel and the failed X86 mobile need the shrink to copmete with ARM - who use less power on 28nm than intel do on 16nm. Samsung are already a huge player in the mobile market - the Exynos 7 Octa for example is in the note 4 and is the fastest thing going right now! even Apple are coming back to Samsung...says it all really. OP be less Intel biased , it really is a disappointing article.

 

[drkrazyrich]

Well Hurry UP and GET ER DONE already .l for one don t want to stuck buying intel cpu s .From what this article points out ,it d be a great idea for both companies and really turn things around for both of them .l like it !!!

 

[turkey3_scratch]

If AMD went out of business, Intel would have a monopoly and with no competition you would be buying expensive CPUs once they jack up the prices!

Though I still do not see them surpassing Intel in the desktop market ever.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Drejeck,

That's the only reason why AMD still exists, ie. Intel could have put AMD into
the dust long ago, but it's well aware that AMD failing completely is not in Intel's
interests, hence the lack of major CPU steups since SB, ditto any real moves
on pricing. Intel didn't need to compete that much, and doing so to the extent
it's clearly capable of would not be in their interests as monopoly measures
would kick in if AMD died. Hence, AMD plods on, an ineffectual competitor
that's never made a consistent profit.

Meanwhile it's no surprise we now see comments about some future AMD
product that will save the day. The fanboys were saying that about BD and
look what happened, total disaster. As for people who have shares in AMD,
that's a big mistake, owning shares from a company in which one has an
emotional investment; one just ends up believing what one wishes will be
true, rather than making a level headed business decision whether to hold
or sell. I know, I made the same mistake with SGI shares before the company
went bust & was bought by Rackable.

Also, imagine you're a chip design engineer at Intel, your passion is developing
new tech, pushing it further. It must be really annoying being told to hold back
because market issues mean releasing something that would completely
demolish AMD is not permitted by the company for whom you work. In that
sense, I bet Intel's chip engineers hope AMD can get their act together just
as much as the AMD fans do, because then the designers can be let out
of the bottle once more & finally we'll have some real innovation. Until then,
desktop CPU tech is stuck in a hole. Overall, nothing has really moved on
since SB/Z68.

The bigger problem with desktop PCs is historical & can't be fixed, ie. the
dominant OS should never have been allowed to become dependent on a
single chip arch, that was dumb.

Ian.

I do not see how an OS can be made for multiple architectures really, the binary works with the architecture its programmed for.

 

[rafsza]

Will customers benefit from Intel´s monopoly? I doubt. I think competition is essence not only for prices of AMD supporters but also for Intel customers. I hope antitrust legislation will intervene if Intel gets hold of a monopoly on CPU chips. Intel should be splitted de jure like IBM was in 1960 by the U.S. Department of Justice. Does AMD really need a genius of Steve Jobs to face competition? I want cheap chips!!!

 

[Mupples]

Won't happen. AMD got rid of those CEOs because they were destroying the company. With Dr. Sue at the helm she'll bring the sinking ship out of the water.

 

[MAXXHEW]

AMD makes great products that I have been using for awhile now. I hope they don't fail as a company. I use AMD CPU's, and AMD Radeon GPU's in all 3 of my homemade gaming pc's. I just don't understand why Intel still does so well... with their high prices, and proven benchmark exaggeration/lies: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/193480-intel-finally-agrees-to-pay-15-to-pentium-4-owners-over-amd-athlon-benchmarking-shenanigans . Maybe now that they are doing business with the Israelis they will show better business practices, because we all know how trustworthy those Israelis are right? Maybe I'm just ignorant for using AMD products, but for gaming, their products do very well... at a real win when it comes to performance for the dollar. I really hope that if Samsung and AMD do business together we can continue getting better gaming products for really cheap prices.

 

[arneberg]

Or why not sell to Nvidia so they got a x86 architecture but if i remember correctly it is in the contract for x86 developers that if they sell they loose the right to use the x86 architecture at least it was so for VIA when it was speculation that Nvidia want to buy them

 

[renz496]

Or why not sell to Nvidia so they got a x86 architecture but if i remember correctly it is in the contract for x86 developers that if they sell they loose the right to use the x86 architecture at least it was so for VIA when it was speculation that Nvidia want to buy them

nvidia already make an agreement with intel that will deny nvidia x86 license forever.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

AMD makes great products that I have been using for awhile now. I hope they don't fail as a company. I use AMD CPU's, and AMD Radeon GPU's in all 3 of my homemade gaming pc's. I just don't understand why Intel still does so well... with their high prices, and proven benchmark exaggeration/lies: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/193480-intel-finally-agrees-to-pay-15-to-pentium-4-owners-over-amd-athlon-benchmarking-shenanigans . Maybe now that they are doing business with the Israelis they will show better business practices, because we all know how trustworthy those Israelis are right? Maybe I'm just ignorant for using AMD products, but for gaming, their products do very well... at a real win when it comes to performance for the dollar. I really hope that if Samsung and AMD do business together we can continue getting better gaming products for really cheap prices.

You are clearly ignoring the fact that Intel CPUs of equal pricing have much more powerful single core performance, and these are no lies. And that they do use less power, heat, and can carry out more instructions per clock. Again, no lies. Though AMD CPUs do have much better multicore performance for the price, though the problem is that not all 6 or 8 cores are really utilized by a program often anyways and they go to waste.

 

[sirstinky]

Hmmm. As is the case, merging with another company isn't always a gimmie that will float a sinking ship. As much as I like AMD, I am sad to say that they are paddling a ship made out of some boards, decking, and a single tattered sail. It's complicated and takes time, time that AMD doesn't have. If big contracts with Sony and Microsoft can't keep them afloat, then it would take drastic action, but a merger would be a good starting point. The fact that AMD is developing new mobile technology with a lot of potential during a time when Samsung still sells more devices than anyone else could be a recipe for success. Time will tell, but the way Intel keeps moving forward, AMD will be in serious trouble. You can only make so much money selling inferior CPU's using outdated technology (aside from APU's).