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by mojuba 6546 days ago
Regardless of the readiness of IBM or any other monster in the field to take over AMD, we are talking about scenarios that make more sense. As a consumer, do you care about IBM and what they are doing? I don't.

Now, some basic facts: Apple needs (and presumably wants) to be independent; Apple's software will run nicely on AMD; AMD got 64-bitness right even before Intel; own video card would be a big bonus for Apple. And this is probably not all.
3 comments
felix_t 6546 days ago
Well, why would Apple have gone with Intel in the first place? The Apple/Intel relation is far more deeper then it looks or one understands. http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/06/13/apple-and-in...

And the fact is that AMD is quite large (especially considering the acquisition of ATI) and even that it's market share dropped significantly it's still a hard buy to digest. I personally don't thing that Apple would make such a risky buy knowing what the ATI acquisition made to AMD itself.

And also a fact is that AMD did very well on the server market. A buy would mean for IBM a win/win situation. What could possibly stand in IBM's way of reentering the mainstream market? One lesson I've come to learn is that as bigger is one's portfolio of good products as better is for one's income. Don't you agree?

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gwniobombux 6546 days ago
Would Apple sell AMD chips to other Manufacturers or would you only be able to get them in Apple hardware? I don't think Apple is interested to start selling chips. And I wouldn't want Intel to basically be the only chip manufacturer for non-Apple hardware. As a consumer I care about competition and I think IBM would be more likely to be able compete with Intel than Apple.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem to make sense for Apple to buy AMD since they ([Apple]; correct me if I'm wrong) seem to put more emphasis on mobile processors, and there Intel is ahead of AMD now and probably for the foreseeable future.

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Tamerlin 6546 days ago
Why does Apple need to be independent? How would be in Apple's best interests to take on the massive overhead of being a CPU manufacturer?

I'm not even convinced that it would be in Apple's best interests to be in the graphics hardware business either, but at least that doesn't entail owning a fab. Neither nVidia nor ATI fabricated their own chips, they contracted that work out to foundries like Chartered and UMC. Owning a fabless graphics hardware developer might work out for Apple, but I'm a bit skeptical about that. I'm also not convinced that it was a wise purchase for AMD though.

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