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AMD:行走在迷失的边缘？？
序言
在过去的19个月里，我们从未见绿色巨人如此的无助过。最近一段时间以来，我们不断听到关于AMD不利的谣言（即将被收购），让我们一起走进真相， AMD 行走在迷失的边缘。
你一定注意到了一点，那就是AMD很长一段时间以来 市值已经低于 40亿美金，这意味着很多公司只要想染指CPU市场，完全可以强行收购AMD来达到自己的目的。所以这些谣言并非空穴来风。我们认为有两家公司会对收购AMD很感兴趣，至于是谁，让我们一一为您道来。
曾经属于AMD的辉煌
在Intel从自吹自擂中醒来之前，AMD的双核构架获得了无数的美誉，无数的人就此认为AMD将会引领市场潮流，通过ex-Motorola 的行政主管，乔治.W.布什的顾问和他的团队。（不知道怎么翻译 嘿嘿）。
事实是这些人士在认识到大好的形式之后才跑来的。。，自从Jerry Sanders III and Atiq Raza.取得辉煌的成功之后。 在失去了XBOX的竞标，并且在K8构架取得重大进步之后，Sanders 认为他们的团队应该加入一位政客来取得更好的业绩。于是Hector Ruiz 入选了。这一切都是在Henri Richard的建议下完成的，正是他建议公司进军体育业，与Ferrari, Lance Armstrong, 以及欧洲的足球俱乐部有了良好的合作关系。
公司从90年代中期以来一直丢盔卸甲，直到AMD做出了由Dirk Meyer领导设计出的 K7的构架设计（也就是广为人知的Athlon），痛击了Intel的 Pentium III。这也是AMD有史以来第一次做出比对手更加优秀的产品。而由此带来的直接影响就是全世界乃至 台湾和中国大陆的公司开始试图亲近绿色巨人来代替Intel。AMD在20世纪早期获得的成功在今天看来是显而易见的，无数公司和工厂开始使用Athlon 64 系统。
2.步履蹒跚～～～～
AMD常常说道：‘ 消费者是上帝’，但是事实上，每隔12到18个月它就会更换CPU的接口规格。 Athlon 64 第一次展出的时候还是 Scoket 754规格，但是不久之后就变成了Scoket 939。 Athlon 64 FX就更加有趣，他的规格一致在跟着市场需要而变化，一开始是 Scoket 940，然后是 940，接着又变回940接口（AM2，AM2+，AM3也是940接口，但是同一开始的S940接口不兼容～～）。 同时他还立下了另一个承诺：向下兼容性。SI放出了无数的文件来保证这个承诺，但是一切都随着 Tom's关于粪龙测试的到来而灰飞烟灭。在Intel‘偷偷’的使用相同的构架几年之后，一些人开始公开的评价绿色巨人的不厚道。 AMD使用了和Intel相同的构架，但是却不允许把新CPU安装到老主板上，就因为 他和Intel的势不两立～～～
我们可以明显的看到AMD在2007年所犯下的一个又一个错误，在K10 发布会上遗忘了服务器市场（我们已经从Dirk Meyer 那得到了关于巴塞罗那的答案），谩骂媒体～ 甚至因为他的无能 丢掉了 已经到手的肥肉，HPC合同。
甚至在最近的形式分析会上，你发现没有一个记者迫于AMD的淫威（强大的公关能力）而敢于提出任何关于AMD不利的问题。
现在，你可能不知道如何形容AMD如何在2007年的无能和堕落。AMD自己把2007称之为 ：为了合作伙伴付出一切的时代，但是我们知道一切都为时已晚，负面影响在不断扩大，所发生的一切都被他的合作伙伴看在眼里。 退回到2002年甚至20世纪90年代，没有人认为AMD是一个强劲的对手。而现在AMD的每一个步骤看起来都是错误的选择。 那些自从ATi被收购以后和AMD合作的公司正在默默的注视着这家一切都越来越糟糕的公司。
出路何在？？ 目前看起来很有可能会被IBM或者NV收购， 而对于NV来说就是 收购的结果就是 SNAP
3.NV与AMD组成战略合作伙伴？？ （SNAP）
也许你还不知道，AMD和NV的合作有很长的历史，双方由于XBOX走到一起，一个使nForce 走向世界的平台。AMD全程参与XBOX设计也许不是什么秘密，微软购买了一份基于Duron和Athlon性能之间的特殊CPU设计蓝图。假如我们设想这个计划成功的话，AMD的XCPU将会用Duron的 128L1和128L2来替代旧的128L1+64K L2设计。在最后一刻的时候，Intel用一份基于赛扬设计的P3蓝图来收买了AMD～～，与此同时 AMD对 NV与MS合作的赞美被这份在我看来垃圾到死的设计图 给冲到了Intel家的厕所里面。
于是 SNAP从XBOX上消失了，但是两家公司仍然把XBOX游戏移植到PC上而为了紧密的合作在一起：nForce 在01年的6月展出 并在9月份正式上市。这是第一份为MS设计的显卡，使用的EV6 FSB（AMD的专利）来代替 Intel的 GTL。 一年以后，这片延续NF2传奇的芯片组，卖出了超过一千万片 Intel却一直对这个问题避而不谈。
NV对于后来的NF3十分失望，于是在 Athlon64 推出一年之前， NV向 Intel交付了 NF4 SLI，一片只支持PD820的芯片组（超频性能低下？）。这也是NV此后对Intel十分谨慎的原因， 而最近的680i SLi 和 Intel 45NM CPU的水火不容，让我们想起了两家公司之间 那短暂的蜜月关系。
SNAP会在AMD-ATi被收购之后做出许多改变，用AMD来制衡ATi？？ 这会使得NV获得ATi的设计蓝图以便从中获得更多的关键技术。我们相信如果Hector Ruiz （鲁智深）这时还在担任AMD CEO的话一定会闹出许多大笑话。 他从来不懂得如何来解决Ati未来的问题和必须要去做的事情。 于是我们可能会从被开除的AMD人力资源部门员工 口中 听到类似的 声音:为什么不开除更多的ATi员工来养活我们？
AMD从07年暑假开始与NV全面对抗，把AMD的CPU ATi 的显卡和芯片组一起与NV抗衡。即使如此，他们还是在过去的一年全面落败，而竞争对手 NV却取得了巨大的成功～～～
４.NV合并 AMD失败，单赢
最近一次我们讨论关于NV收购ATi的时候要去回想一下当AMD希望收购NV的那个时刻。事实上，NV才是AMD的第一选择。在双方谈判的关键时刻，AMD的市值为230亿，而NV有11到13亿，徘徊在被收购的边缘。让我们回顾下05年的下半年，当时AMD要寻找对策来抗衡Intel的Nehalem and Larrabee。于此同时，我们听说在鲁智深和小黄CEO的位置，而鲁智深那个白痴并不想‘让贤’。
如果当时收购案可以通过，也许今天我们就会见到一家怪兽级别的半导体公司，一家拥有 速龙 64 粪龙 Opteron 以及 GeFore，Quadro以及nFore所霸占的市场资源，一家无视产品缺点硬把他们整合到一起的巨人。
于是AMD把眼光投向了ATI，两家公司在05年的年底坐在一起开始讨论收购事宜。
收购计划在06年代三月完成，在同年的7月24号公之于众。他们认为收购ATi是一步好旗，但事实上ATi只是老二而已。如果AMD足够谨慎（或者可以理解为那个笨蛋不对权利那么热衷）那么AMD将在显卡市场获得一个稳固的立足之处，而不是只在GPU市场取得小小的成果而在ＣＰＵ市场上走下坡路。
５.如果ＮＶ与ＡＭＤ合并， 双赢。
让我们把目光转向０７年代１１月份，ＡＭＤ已经陷入了泥潭，而小黄同学的才智再一次显露出来。 鲁智深和小黄开始争吵‘一报还一报自作孽不可活哇，我要收购你的公司’。 但是事实是残酷的，没有理由这份计划不会通过。 所有ＮＶ的员工口袋里有足够的钱来还债，似乎当年３ｄｆｘ的故事即将重演。
但是，为了不让这种情况发生（个人理解，认为Ｔｏｍ＇ｓ的小编在说反话），唯一的办法是对ＡＭＤ的决策系统下手，解铃还需系令人。在ＮＶ拿出一份漂亮的报表的同时，这一切已将开始通过削弱股东开始了。当一个合作伙伴开始销售ＧＦ３那天起（同时抛弃 Guillemot/Hercules ），ＮＶ开始让合作伙伴只销售做好的显卡，而他的股东就变成了 ‘印钞机’。这使得所有的客户利润大幅下降，甚至导致某些公司推出市场。当ＮＶ控制了所有ＡＩＢ产品的时候，台湾的厂商就会投入Ｉｎｔｅｌ的怀抱，想想当西门子
接手３ｄｆｘ时候的感受吧。
第二个不利因素就是 负债率？。 ＮＶ目前拥有大概２４亿的现金，但是要想吃掉类似ＡＭＤ这样的大公司，他还需要获得１００亿的贷款？？，在吃掉ＡＭＤ这个价值５４亿的包袱之后。
但是一旦ＡＭＤ被收购之后，一个关于ＮＶ的谣言就会消失。 而Ｉｎｔｅｌ不得不面对ＮＶ在市场上对他的全面挑战。ＮＶ可以轻易进军多样化的网络业（几年前他收购了一个叫 ３Ｃｏｍ的团队，从而得到了"plug'n'play 技术），进军掌上电脑业（ＡＰＸ２５００对ＮＶ来讲比大多数人想象的更加重要），台式机市场（粪龙，ＮＶ主板＋显卡），移动数码市场（Turion+nForce+GeForce）， 服务器市场（Opteron+nForce Pro+Tesla), 乃至高性能计算机市场 (Opteron+nForce Pro+Tesla), 等等. 当然了 根据最近一次的收益报告？？ 没有什么可以阻止一家公司绕过保密协议来实现这一切。？？
遗憾的是，小黄的错误在于 他一直想做一家专注单一市场的公司。这也许会使得他在未来的潮流中丧失先机。（例如ＧＰＵ和ＣＰＵ的结合）
６.也许ＩＢＭ大叔会是个不错的合作伙伴。
大家认为ＩＢＭ理所当然会买 ＡＭＤ。在一开始的时候，没有人能买的起AMD，直到X86构架上出现一些无法弥补的缺陷。如果AMD被一家外国公司购买，那么那些专利就会不再属于美国，同时也就会失去AMD这家公司的品牌价值。 所以 NV和IBM就会成为理所当然的两个买家。
在IBM看来，买下AMD不是什么问题。 AMD现在价值 38.8亿 NV是134.4亿而IBM则略低于1500亿～～ 这样看来 AMD迟早是IBM的囊中之物，而在IBM羽翼下茁壮成长的AMD过去所面对的一切困难都将不再是问题。
目前，IBM拥有无数 重量级的合作伙伴，类似 索尼 东芝。但是不要忘记拥有AMD/ATI或者说DAAMIT（国外对AMD的恶搞，意为迅速，疾行”）
之后， IBM将会改变世界电视游戏业的游戏规则，三大电视游戏厂商将会使用IBM的CPU并使用ATI的显卡。而且下一代产品看起来十分诱人，一旦IBM拥有如此之多的优秀设计团队，那么他将为MS SONY 任天堂开发出更好的产品。 一份20到30亿的大蛋糕看起来是多么的诱人～～～
另外一个无法忽略的情况就是，AMD已经把一个来自奥斯汀的技术小组放到了
纽约来研制新的CPU。许多AMD的工程师月IBM的人员一起并肩奋战，彼此间的秘密为彼此所知，以便共同分割Intel的市场份额。
这也会促进IBM和一些合作伙伴走的更近，例如电子产品的消费者，例如用ATI与STMicro, Thomson, Philips, Silicon Optix 等等公司直接抗衡。掌上娱乐设备也是NV和ATI每年投入巨资来相互抗衡的一个巨大市场
，同时我们也无法窥视高性能HPC市场 因为这里是IBM的后花园， 例如Cell或者Intel 芯片组。 一旦拥有AMD，将会给IBM带来无限的商机，而拥抱ATi，可以让IBM进军掌上娱乐市场，这是未来10年支配世界的力量。
GPGPU 也很诱人，这也是为什么IBM和NV对 AMD垂涎三尺的原因。GPGPU可以看作AMD的利器，一旦拥有， IBM将会拥有更多的商机。
结语
随着NV没用搞到足够的资金，AMD已经可以看作落入IBM 口袋之中。
据一些Intel的知情人士透露给我们的消息，他们害怕这会动摇intel 的老大地位，在他们内部有这么一句话： IBM是永生不死的吸血鬼（或者说 小强），你可以给他一张汤姆克鲁斯一样英俊的脸，但是最麻烦的就是IBM会在美女出现之前就开始围绕那个地方转圈圈了～～。
A combination of IBM and AMD would leave x86 licenses safe and intact, and that is a matter of utmost importance. From another side, the manufacturing alliance should not be overlooked.
A third option for AMD is to weather the storm and stay on course alone, surrounded by a ton of partners, and faith that K10.5 and K11 will bring out competitive CPU parts, to complement graphics and chipsets. Only time will tell how this story ultimately unfolds
累了 最后一段 不翻译了， 这是我第一次翻译文章，希望大家可以多提提意见。 谢谢
有写的不好的地方，希望可以指正。 实在没太多时间润色了 粗制滥造的东东 嘿嘿
Introduction
The past 19 months certainly haven't been easy for the green team from Sunnyvale. Lately, we have seen persistent rumors that AMD has become an acquisition target, leading us to look a bit closer into what's really going on. To merge or not to merge, that is the question
You have to admit, it is somewhat obvious. AMD has been trading below a $4 billion market value for some time and there are many companies out there, which could purchase AMD in a snap, if they wanted to get into the CPU business. So these acquisition rumors aren't really surprising. We believe that AMD could a very interesting target for an acquisition and there are two obvious candidates. Let's take this step by step.
AMD's Success
Before Intel managed to kick ego-boasting, sleeping-on-laurels AMD with its brilliant Core 2 architecture, a lot of people thought that AMD's success was all up to the firm's current management, headed by ex-Motorola executive and advisor to George W. Bush, Hector Ruiz and his gang.
The truth of the matter is that all these guys execute on a situation, which had been brilliantly created by Jerry Sanders III and Atiq Raza. After losing out on the Microsoft Xbox deal and with K8 in advanced development, Sanders felt that they needed to bring a strong seller and a good politician to the team. Hector Ruiz was selected. This was followed by the arrival of Henri Richard, who introduced the company into sport sponsorships, creating a successful relationship with companies such as Ferrari, Lance Armstrong, and soccer clubs in Europe.
From a company that was losing out heavily in the mid-90s, AMD delivered a major coup with the K7 design (known as Athlon), a chip that trounced Intel's Pentium III. The K7 design was the baby of a team led by Dirk Meyer. This was the first time in history that AMD managed to produce a better part than Intel. The result was that even companies in Taiwan and China started to warm up to the Green field instead of the Blue river. The success of AMD in the early 2000s is especially obvious today, for example when you go and visit the factories that manufacture graphics cards, USB sticks and other components. In most factories we have visited, AMD Athlon 64 systems are the "weapon of choice" for qualification and testing processes. This is a fairly business in terms of production numbers and sold units, but it is priceless in terms of the influence such installations deliver.
The Downward Spiral
AMD was always preaching the "customer centric" mantra, but in reality, the company was changing processor sockets and making incompatible design calls almost every 12-18 months. AMD's Athlon 64 debuted with Socket 754, but when the company learned of its mistake, it created Socket 939. Athlon 64 FX was an interesting story, changing Sockets as marketers wanted: In the beginning, there was Socket 940, then 939, then back to 940 (AM2, AM2+, AM3 also use 940 pins, but are incompatible with the first S940). Also, AMD kept on promising something that it could not deliver: Backwards compatibility. SI's had ton of issues with Santa Rosa Opterons, and the whole debacle over Phenom upgrades as tested over at Tom's Hardware makes you wonder. While Intel remains silent and has been using the same socket for several years, few dared to openly criticize the giant. The company kept the same socket, but prevented an upgrade option (e.g. you cannot put a new CPU on an older motherboard, due to "some XY incompatibility").
There are numerous examples where AMD went wrong in 2007 in its communications, forgetting the workstation market at the K10 Opteron launch (this was an answer given to us by Dirk Meyer in Barcelona), abusing the channel and losing already won HPC contracts with its inability to ship thousands of Opterons to this segment. And yet, at events such as the firm's Analyst Day, you see lots of people approving the mantra of AMD leadership - and not asking critical questions.
At the end of the day, you can't describe it differently than saying that AMD screwed up badly in 2007. AMD itself called 2007 the "perfect storm" for the company, but we have to realize that everything was magnified, because all eyes were an the company. Back in 2002, and in the 1990s, nobody considered AMD to be a serious player. Now, it is in the limelight, and has been making wrong choices every step of the way. The exodus of members of the management as well as key engineers after the takeover of ATI was just the silent witness that something went terribly wrong.
Where are we now? We're left with the prospect of an AMD/ATI that could be acquired by either IBM or Nvidia. The relationship with Nvidia is a very interesting one - SNAP.
Strategic Nvidia-AMD Partnership (SNAP)
As you may or may not know, the relationship between AMD and Nvidia has been a long one, starting with the first Xbox, which unleashed nForce to the world. It is not a secret that AMD had Xbox all lined up, with Microsoft buying a special version of the CPU that was somewhere between Duron and Athlon. If we recall it correctly, AMD's XCPU was a Duron design with 128 L1+128KB L2 cache, instead of Duron's 128KB L1 + 64 KB L2 cache combo. Intel pimped AMD at the last minute with a Pentium III design (actually, this design was more Celeron), and all of the AMD presentations in which AMD was praising its Nvidia and Microsoft relationships, were flushed down the toilet.
Given the fact that SNAP was ousted out of the Xbox, AMD and Nvidia continued to collaborate closely on bringing the Xbox design to the PC: nForce 420 was launched in June and shipped in September of 2001, ahead of Xbox console. It was nothing but an original nForceX design for Microsoft, with original support for EV6 FSB (that AMD used) instead of Intel's GTL. A year later, this was followed by the legendary nForce2 chipset, which was sold in the tens of millions (quite a high number for an enthusiast chipset) and Intel was constantly shunned for an Intel-based nForce.
Nvidia was disappointed with the nForce3 design, since it was completed a year ahead of Athlon 64, and that gave the company time to create nForce 4 SLI for Intel, only to be screwed by Intel's Pentium D 820 design, which was incompatible with the boards (a desperate bid to avoid utilizing overclocking capabilities of the chipset). This is the reason why Nvidia is extremely careful in its dealings with Intel, and the recent nForce 680i-Intel 45nm Penryn fallout only reminded us of the fragile relationship between the two.
SNAP continued to take place even after the AMD-ATI buyout, with a war that engaged AMD people against ATI people. This led to ATI's roadmaps being leaked to Nvidia and various departures from key engineers harmed the product cycles. We believe that this could also turn out to be the most critical mistake Hector Ruiz made as CEO of AMD. He did not voice out clearly what would happen with ATI and why the acquisition was necessary. When we heard stories that involved various people from AMD's Human Resource department - this author vividly remembers questions like "Why can't we fire more ATI people?" in internal e-mail communications.
AMD started attacking Nvidia in summer of 2007, making bundle deals that included AMD's processors and ATI graphics and chipsets for the "back to school" period. Thus, a whole year was lost. We all know that Nvidia gained tremendous market momentum.
Failed AMD-Nvidia Merger, Take One
However, with the recent talk about Nvidia buying ATI, it would be only logical to go back at that point in time when AMD wanted to buy Nvidia. In fact, Nvidia was AMD's first choice for acquisition. At the time of negotiations, AMD's market cap was $23 billion, and Nvidia was worth somewhere in $11-13 billion range, or just about dead-even between merger and acquisition. We're talking about the second half of 2005, and AMD was looking into ways to respond to upcoming Intel threats called Nehalem and Larrabee. We learned that it all fell apart because of a fallout between Hector Ruiz and Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia's CEO. Huang wanted the CEO position, a position that Ruiz did not want to surrender. If that merger had gone through, we would probably have a monster semiconductor company right now, with Athlon 64, Phenom, Opteron and GeForce, Quadro and nForce dominating the market, regardless of the strength of weakness of some components in the package.
AMD turned its focus to ATI, and merger talks between AMD and ATI began at the very end of 2005. The deal was set to happen by March 2006, and it was publicly announced on July 24th, 2006. The Inquirer wrote an excellent analysis on the subject, but the fact remains that ATI was a second pick. If AMD had been smart enough, an acquisition of Ageia would have provided the company with a foothold in the physics segment, instead of constantly making two steps forward and one step back.
AMD-Nvidia Merger, Take Two
Fast forward to November of 2007. AMD is in trouble and the natural call for Jen-Hsun Huang surfaced again. Approaching Ruiz and the gang with the attitude "what goes around, comes around" and "I want to buy you now" did not go well, we hear. But business is business and is never personal. There was no reason why the deal would not have gone through. All Nvidia needed was enough money to take the company AND the debt. A repeat of the 3dfx charade is not an option here.
However, in order for that to happen, the only way to go was to get support from partners from AMD's eco-system and this is where the trouble apparently started. While Nvidia is achieving record success with sales, it has done so by weakening its partners. From a company that started selling GPUs with memory back in GeForce3 days (and threw Guillemot/Hercules out of the race), Nvidia turned into a company that now sells a complete card, and partners are nothing else but "sticker stampers". This crashed the profits of all the companies involved, and many disappeared. With Nvidia controlling the AIB market for both ATI and Nvidia products, Taiwan would rush into Intel's arms. Memories of what happened with 3dfx when an ex-Siemens CEO took over the company are still livid in the world of graphics card manufacturers.
The second unfavorable factor is the debt-to-equity ratio. Nvidia has a lot of money in the bank, currently about $2.4 billion, but to eat up a company like AMD, it would have to cough up somewhere in tune of $10 billion, since AMD is $5.4 billion in debt.
But with AMD on-board, any rumors that Nvidia is toast would be eliminated forever. Also, Intel would have to face Nvidia on almost every front of its businesses. Nvidia can easily diversify into a networking company (it bought a 3Com team ages ago, which is the reason for the brilliant "plug'n'play" connectivity in nForce chipsets), into a handheld company (APX 2500 is much more important than you might think at first), desktop platforms (Phenom+nForce+GeForce), mobile platforms (Turion+nForce+GeForce), workstation platforms (Opteron+nForce Pro+Quadro), server platforms (Opteron+nForce Pro+Tesla), HPC platforms (Opteron+nForce Pro+Tesla), etc. And, of course, with the recent purchase of Ageia, nothing would stop the company from implementing PhysX in every pore of its DNA.
Sadly, Huang's fault is the fact that he believes in the value of a single company. Just like the company destroyed the 3dfx line-up and did not use the world's second IT brand (Voodoo, just after Pentium) to its full potential, we have no doubt that Nvidia would cannibalize ATI and basically screw up its chipset development, as well as the development of future Radeons. Instead of creating synergy, the company would probably lose valuable time in preparations for the arrival of Nehalem and Sandy Bridge from the CPU side, and Larrabee from the cGPU side.
IBM Could Be An Interesting Partner
IBM is a logical choice to buy AMD. For starters, AMD cannot be bought by just anybody, since there are limiting factors with the license for the x86 architecture. If AMD would be acquired by a foreign company (such as Samsung), that license would be lost, and that would diminish the value of AMD as a company. Thus, Nvidia and IBM, are the only two real players are in the game.
When it comes to IBM, the matter of market cap is very simple - AMD is currently valued at $3.88 billion and Nvidia goes for $13.44 billion. IBM is valued just below the $150 billion mark. Thus, AMD is pocket money for IBM, and the potential gains with AMD under IBM's wings are numerous.
For starters, IBM has a ton of manufacturing partnerships and is a member of a manufacturing alliance that involves AMD, IBM and Chartered from one side, and Toshiba and Sony from other. Let's not forget the fact that with AMD/ATI (or just Daamit) on-board, IBM would rule the world of video game consoles - all three consoles feature IBM processors, and the two leading consoles have ATI GPUs inside. The next generation of consoles could look much different, if IBM would have such design teams to develop complete solutions for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. And the market of 200-300 million consoles is very attractive.
There is also a small fact that AMD relocated one engineering team from Austin, TX to East Fishkill, NY - to work on a new manufacturing processes on the spot. With a lot of AMD engineers working closely side-by-side with IBM on next-gen designs, opening all secrets would create an incredibly flexible semiconductor giant that would be able to seriously cut down Intel's market share.
This would also propel IBM into worlds that are currently closed for the company, such as the consumer electronics segment, where ATI Imageon chips go head-to-head against STMicro, Thomson, Philips, Silicon Optix and others. The handheld market is also an interesting segment where ATI and Nvidia ship hundreds of millions of chips per annum, and we won't go into lucrative HPC deals where IBM usually competes either with its Power, Cell or Intel chips. Going all-IBM in the x86 arena would also open a new world for IBM's services, and this is what the company wants to influence. With ATI on board, IBM would enter the world of visual computing, which is set to dominate the world in decades to come (holographs, HUDs, monitors everywhere we go).
GPGPU also comes to mind, and this is the reason why both IBM and Nvidia would want AMD very, very badly. AMD has been quite vocal about integrating GPGPU-friendly improvements, and GPUs would gain CPU-friendly features.What speaks against an acquisition of AMD by IBM is IBM's current direction into services.
Conclusion
With Nvidia not having any support from partners to buy AMD, and the fact that the debt-to-equity ratio could prove deadly, Nvidia is effectively out of the running for the company. A deal could still happen, but if AMD is for sale, IBM is the logical choice.
As some Intel insiders have told us, this would be the move that scares Intel's leadership beyond belief. There is a saying inside Intel: "IBM is a vampire that never dies". You can give it Tom Cruise's face, but the fact of the matter is that IBM has been around the block before the block even existed.
A combination of IBM and AMD would leave x86 licenses safe and intact, and that is a matter of utmost importance. From another side, the manufacturing alliance should not be overlooked.
A third option for AMD is to weather the storm and stay on course alone, surrounded by a ton of partners, and faith that K10.5 and K11 will bring out competitive CPU parts, to complement graphics and chipsets. Only time will tell how this story ultimately unfolds.
[ 本帖最后由 xzclzj 于 2008-2-16 09:17 编辑 ] |
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发表于 2008-2-16 00:42:20
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