According to a report in The Globe and Mail, the board of directors at AMD has allegedly approved the takeover of Canadian graphics firm ATI Technologies. The reports said that the information was released by an investment banker that was part of the discussions. According to other sources, AMD executives were also seen at ATI's headquarters in Markham, Ontario. The report indicated that AMD is considering a $5.6 billion takeover bid for ATI. Speculation and rumors have run rampant over the last several months about the possible merger between AMD and ATI, but no concrete details have been revealed. According to reports on ATI's share prices, the company's shares have been trading at double the usual volume today. Analysts said that AMD would be making an offer of 20 to 40 percent premium to ATI's current share price. ATI shares traded at $16.12 on the NASDAQ today during after hours, which is up 39 cents from yesterday's closing. Reuters has also picked up on the story, claiming that "Some analysts have questioned the rationale for an AMD-ATI merger, and others were surprised that the speculation received no attention from analysts during AMD's earnings conference call on Thursday." DailyTech had punched in for question during the investor conference call on Thursday, but a moderator would not respond. According to Eric Gomberg, an analyst for investment bank Thomas Weisel Partners, "there has been considerable industry speculation that AMD may pursue an acquisition of ATI Technologies, although such an outcome is by no means certain." Gomberg's comment came in earlier this week, but word circulating around investment bankers who are aware of the talks between ATI and AMD surfaced just several hours ago. Recent reports indicated that Intel roadmaps no longer included ATI chipsets. Although Intel had been producing motherboards using ATI logic, upcoming boards like those that support Core 2 processors are void of any chipset from ATI. Interestingly, ATI and Intel had agreed to several cross-licensing programs that allowed them to take advantage of some of each other's technologies. Several analysts however, indicated that the merger between AMD and ATI to be "out of strategy for AMD and out of focus. Stupidity is no barrier to tech mergers." A report in the Wall Street Journal confirms the talks between AMD and ATI today. Although the deal is not final, the report said that representatives from both companies declined to comment. AMD has previously indicated that it would embrace embedded processor technologies for its Torrenza platform -- some of which would include math and physics co-processors. However, the company has recently exited all non-x86 processor design. Source: DailyTech
This will be very interesting to see how this pans out. I wonder how Intel will react in terms of Crossfire and SLI support.
I don't know of this is such a good move for AMD. Will the ATI merger create a rival in nVidia? Its not easy to compete with nVidia, given the fact that they hold so much of the chipset market. Will this create an AMD/ATI and Intel/nVidia side? I don't know, but given the current circumstances it doesn't look too good.
My two favorite hardware companies coming together, how fabulous. I feel as if it's always been Intel/Nvidia against AMD/ATI, but that's not really true because I know many people that have a Nvidia card and AMD processor. Plus the fact that many of the motherboards that are AMD compatible have Nvidia chipsets. I personally have nothing against Nvidia, if they had a card I really liked I'd probably get it, but Intel is just not for me.
AMD has secured its deal already, look here [link=http://www.hardwareforums.com/thoughts-amd-ati-merger-13014/]amd-ati-merger[/link]
hmm, well this is kinda one of those things that you never see coming, but AMD really lacks in the laptop department, and with AMD and ATI together, it could help AMD out with their laptops sales, they could put an ATI card on all of their laptops, thtat would have greater perfomance than a SIS card would have but at a lower price. just my thoughts, I'm kinda unhappy
It seems that ATI is still promoting Intel, in that there boundless gaming article and there dedicated physics card. In the article the words Intel Core 2 Extreme, were used at least once in each paragraph. Boundless_Gaming
