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This will probably go down as AMD's biggest strategic mistake in the past decade (other than the Bulldozer architecture). Did they at least revise their licens
by mtgx 9y ago
This will probably go down as AMD's biggest strategic mistake in the past decade (other than the Bulldozer architecture).
Did they at least revise their licensing deal where Intel basically adds a requirement that AMD can't be sold to other companies? If not, then AMD's leadership must be clueless. They should've revised that clause the first chance they got to make another deal (like this one!) with Intel.
- jjawssd 9y agoAs a "strategic mistake" counter-argument: It is possible that AMD would go under without this deal.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y agoLeading AMD must be emotionally exhausting. Can you image leading a company that for so long is fighting for survival?
- manigandham 9y agoThis is basically every startup. Many of the quiet successes take decades.
- qeternity 9y agoThis is most businesses in general where healthy and creatively destructive competition takes place.
- krylon 9y agoGiven the entangled licensing situation, what would happen to Intel if AMD went bankrupt? Would they not lose their x86_64 license, unless they bought what remained of AMD? And if they did, would that raise some major antitrust issues?
- Macha 9y agoDepends on the license terms. e.g. if their license agreement says its irrevocable or "irrevocable unless <some action that blatantly violates the spirit of the contract>", then a future AMD buyer would not be able to retract the license just because they think they could get a better deal now. I'd imagine Intel's lawyers are good enough to get such a deal.
- infogulch 9y agoIs that reasonable though? I thought AMD was doing great with Ryzen and Epyc, and Vega is selling out as much as they can make.
- jjawssd 9y agoAMD is BARELY free cash flow positive. They have been on the brink of running out of cash as long as memory serves me. https://ycharts.com/companies/AMD/free_cash_flow https://ycharts.com/companies/AMD/free_cash_flow
- lettergram 9y agoI can't imagine they would do this without a new licensing deal. Essentially, they are handing over their APU technology. I still think their ryzen chips are likely cheaper to produce and equally performant to Intel's. So overall they are still a solid option. This just helps them make inroads with Intel who already locked up much of the laptop market. I'm pretty convinced there was no way AMD could enter that market for a few years in any meaningful way regardless.
- littlecranky67 9y agoAs far as some sources report, AMD will be shipping Dies to Intel so the IP of the GPUs is not revealed. I also think that we will hear that AMD gets to use some patents/Intel technology over the deal (such as AVX512).
- agumonkey 9y agoDepends how long