Yeah if that turns out to be true, and tablets outsell laptops next year, then Nvidia will have positioned themselves quite nicely for the future. They'll have Tegra in phones and tablets, and have Geforce in laptops and desktops.
Some of you might like this news story on tablets
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tablet-era-20110506,0,5144993.story
Personally I think I'd get a tablet only when they fall to much more reasonable prices and use it mostly as a (literal) notepad to write reminders to myself or update my google calendar etc. Even then, I'd probably input a lot of notes on my smartphone and laptop and desktop as well. One thing that worries me is if I'd need to pay for a data plan to link up the tablet to a 3G or 4G network or if it can accept tethering easily. If not, then I might give up on the tablet, because I'm not going to run around trying to find a wifi connection to help sync up my desktop/laptop/tablet/smartphone... and even if it could tether, I might just give up on the middleman (tablet) and input directly into my phone if there weren't too much to scrawl.
Quick question for you financial guru's.
If Amd is gaining so much market share why is Nvidia's stock 2x the value of AMD's?
Can you explain this in plain english for me? Does it have something to do with actual profits?
By the way, ARM and INTC are the two players in the server space now, especially with performance/watt being more and more important.
Is anyone actually talking about using ARM in servers? I mean companies talking about actually running them. Because MS & Facebook both have openly said they're going with multi-core Atom clusters for their data centers.
AMD's Bulldozer design will do well in the server space as well. They just have to get people to use them.
I wouldn't be so certain. Once the HTPC trend goes mainstream, I thnk we'll be seeing some kind of fusion of the platforms. The driving force behind the industrys push of consoles - DRM - is more or less getting into place on the PC platform with the adaption by the market of Steam.And PC gaming is a DYING breed! I see tablet gaming as the portable version of console gaming. PC gaming is over! Enjoy your Crysis benchmarks while you can boys.
I think smartphones, tablets, and ARM-based Windows 8 will transform NV into a different company in the 2-3 years. By then, NV might not even compete with AMD.
NV + ARM + Google + phone/tablets + supercomputing = lots of potential for explosive growth!!!
And PC gaming is a DYING breed! I see tablet gaming as the portable version of console gaming. PC gaming is over! Enjoy your Crysis benchmarks while you can boys.
NV would be wise to divest in other emerging tech trend. Apparently, lots of investors believe that NV has more potential than AMD and they are voting with their money and valuing NV more.
As for the mobile/tablet market, both Intel and AMD intend to compete effectively in those markets, Intel with their very considerable process node advantage and AMD by leveraging their ever increasing APU expertise.
If Amd is gaining so much market share why is Nvidia's stock 2x the value of AMD's?
They have probably accepted the fact that they will lose marketshare due to the current market reality when it comes to APUs.
You do realize that AMD sold off their portable division altogether, right? They had a design that ended up dominating the industry for a considerable amount of time(by portable standards, it isn't the lethargic market PCs have become) and helped QC push billions of dollars in profits into their accounts. The product was Snapdragon, the sum AMD sold it for? $65 Million. It is hard to comprehend how stupid AMD is when it comes to business.
As far as Intel, I have no doubt that their efforts into the ultra portable market will be at least as wildly successful as their multi billion dollar entry into discrete GPUs.
AMD's engineers could come up with the 'ultimate technology' tomorrow with the promise of billions of dollars in profits, their executives would be falling over each other to sell it for a fraction of a percentage point. This isn't me bashing them, this is simply their history.
Smartphones already oustell PCs, if you look at nVidia as a company versus AMD and Intel I would be willing to wager their overall graphics shipments are going to increase significantly over the next year. The problem is that these trends(JP) track 'Intel and AMD based platforms' exclusively which would tend to give them a bit of an advantage. The old models are already dead, some people just don't realize it yet.
Yeah AMD looks like complete fools when you look at the QualComm sale.
AMD was in dire straits for cash at the time they sold this division to Qualcomm.
Up until that point in time it had never made a single dollar of profit. It was pure loss.
If you are managing a cash-poor company, you are bleeding red every quarter, and your shareholders are screaming for your head if you don't get costs under control, how do you stand up and justify continuing to throw good money after something that has proven to only be a bad investment up until that point?
It is easy enough now for us to look back and say "well, if only..." but at the time people were surprised they even got $65m for it.
Not every CEO is in the enviable position of keeping money-losing pet projects on life support just because they have a hunch it might pan out someday.
why is Nvidia's stock 2x the value of
They could have sold off ATi for a lot more, and it would have been a far better business choice.
First statement is correct, the second statement is not(well, the use of 'pure loss' isn't accurate in a business sense). They were already licensing the technology to Qualcomm, it wasn't pure loss although AMD did find a way to dodge the enormous profits the market brings up to that point. By comparison, ATi overall has cost them significantly more(in terms of loss).
Not by selling for a pittance my class leading technology in an exploding market with enormous profit margins. Apple went from borderline bankruptcy to the largest tech company in the world using this very segment, and that process was quite far along when AMD decided to exit the market. They could have sold ATi to nVidia for a billion and used that to fund Snapdragon development/deployment. From a business perspective AMD would be a *FAR* stronger company if they had done this(not saying that would have been good for the PC GPU market, but when looking at what would have been best for their business).
Selling off their x86 business would have been smarter, it was losing far more money and didn't have anywhere near the long term outlook prospects that Andreno/Snapdragon did. The worst part for them is, the staggering growth of that market is still growing rapidly. Within the next five years it could be closing in on ten times the size of the PC market(Phones, tablets, MID, etc). None of this is even slightly surprising to anyone who follows the markets. This sale happened close to two years after the launch of the iPhone(when it was very obvious where the market was headed).
I don't think stock value has anything to do with anything.
Now, the CHANGE in stock value is meaning, but the value itself in isolation is utterly useless. When a corporation does a a stock split, does it immediately become half as successful because it's stock value per share went down?
During ECGC 2011, Nvidia senior vice president of content and technology Tony Tamasi made a startling prediction during his keynote presentation called "The Future of Graphics Processing." He claimed that GPU performance will increase 1000-percent by 2015, allowing graphics cards to generate real-time ray tracing and procedurally generated smoke at 30 to 60 frames per second.
Nvidia stock performance reflects good/expected quarterly earnings, and investor confidence. Which is bolstered lately from Tegra 2/ mobile division. Some Fans predicted Nvidia was doomed losing their chipset division. Thats all but forgotten.
Arguably the 'biggest' division is still the PRO/workstation cards. R+D costs, in this area, historically is used on the high end gaming cards. Where is that going ?
I don't think stock value has anything to do with anything.
Now, the CHANGE in stock value is meaning, but the value itself in isolation is utterly useless. When a corporation does a a stock split, does it immediately become half as successful because it's stock value per share went down?
So do you agree that stock value, independent of other information, is a completely worthless indicator of anything?
It's not "so what". So long as the integrated GPUs in the Fusion chips keep getting more and more powerful (which they will), AMD is going to continue to gain marketshare with nVidia (and Intel will as well).
AMD has talked about multi-cored GPUs being built into their future CPUs. In effect, they are going to dedicate more die space to the GPU. If they turn around and build in a DDR5 slot or two into their future motherboards, nVidia better be careful because they will be relegated to a small niche market.
nVidia is moving into the ARM arena for a reason. They have probably accepted the fact that they will lose marketshare due to the current market reality when it comes to APUs.
I don't believe Intel can automatically void VIA's x86 license if the company is sold.
If they sold ATI instead we would't be seeing APU's today from their side. Selling ATI would also mean throwing a wrench to their x86 plans which is their main product.
Nobody will buy their x86 division because the x86 license probably isn't transferable except for maybe VIA since they have an x86 license but i doubt VIA is capable of it.