Originally posted by: nRollo
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Originally posted by: Wreckage
Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I honestly believe the AMD/ATI merger will prove to be a good move in the long term... if they survive that long.
I disagree. I doubt they will ever recoup the $5.4 billion they spent plus the 7 losing quarters.
That would be the business coup of all time if it actually happened. As it is, if the economy doesn't bounce back quickly, AMD/ATi is dead, and will be chopped up and sold off to pay down the debts.
Which will suck, but you're likely right.
On the graphics front, NVIDIA will keep after ATi because even people not necessarily using stereo/physX/CUDA likely won't want to make sure they never can by purchasing ATi except at bargain prices. (not to mention every game they launch tells them "Buy NVIDIA")
On the CPU side AMD has nothing comparable to high end Penrynn, let alone i7. Why would anyone buy a AMD motherboard when everyone currently has LGA775, and upgraders have no choice but 1366?
On the chipset side, people will keep not buying AMD chipsets because there are no competitive AMD CPUs, and they can get CF (if they want it) on Intel boards and not hamstring themselves.
About all AMD has going on now is the 4800 series are really good cards, but even with that they've been forced to low margin sale prices by other factors.
Bleh.
It's got to be really really depressing at AMD/ATi now, considering another tenth of the people you know as an employee there just got dumped, and if you're still there you got a big pay cut if you're management or engineering.
THAT will have huge fallout too.
If you're an engineer and making $150,000 a year and your manager tells you "Guess what? Now you make $135,000!" your first move is to send your resume' to every company that might hire you. You likely just lost your discretionary income or what you're investing- either way you walk and walk fast in a climate like that.
The guys who don't end up reading "Who moved the Cheese" while trying to figure out how to live on $2K month unemployment vs $10K a month income.
It's just bad news anyway you cut it.