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IMG share price fell 70 per cent his morning. Apple is by far its biggest customer.
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IMG share price fell 70 per cent his morning. Apple is by far its biggest customer.
Surely you're not suggesting anything untoward is going on there...? ;)Quote:
... Apple holds 8 per cent of IMG shares and has previously held talks about buying it out. Today it would be a bargain, perhaps ...
Oh hell. I just accepted a job offer with Imagination Technologies.
It would certainly be seen as market manipulation for Apple to do anything with regards to buying IMG.L
This is certainly bad news for them, as it's half their revenue and likely what keeps the company from not going bankrupt despite the other licensees. Still other GPU companies exist which are smaller - Vivante for example. So they can stay alive by trimming down. But then they don't advance as quickly and fall behind. ARM's Mali is a big competitor. I suspect they are already as lean as can be, so further cuts will hurt badly (like Tory austerity politics).
However, if Apple have their own GPU, then Samsung will want their own GPU, so don't be surprised if Imagination aren't bought for that reason. A few hundred million isn't a lot of a company like Samsung, and they would get a lot of expertise in return. MIPS would be dead though.
Yeah possible, it's usually last-in-first-out when the job cuts come and if you haven't been there for long you won't be entitled to any/much redundancy payout.Quote:
Originally Posted by afiretruck
Difficult to see Imagination replacing the Apple business if it's lost. Qualcomm, NVidia and Intel have their own graphics IP, Samsung and many of the Chinese budget SoC designers are using the ARM Mali they probably get bundled at discount with the ARM CPU core designs. Who would want or need Imagination graphics at the same scale as Apple?
If Imagination are an independent company by this time next year I will be shocked - best outcome for them now is acquisition, they should have taken what they were offered before. Wouldn't surprise me if Apple have made this announcement deliberately to force the share price down so the Imagination board have to accept Apple's terms.
Looks like Charlie over on SA was onto something a few years ago:
http://semiaccurate.com/2014/03/25/d...es-gpu-emerge/
Meh, we're working as normal today ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by afiretruck
You'll be alright mate.
I think Apple might get some serious eyebrow-raises if they announce they're going to use their own non-Imagination GPU tech, then once the price goes down try to buy up Imagination on the cheap and use their GPU tech anyway. Imagination's shareholders would have a field day with that one, I suspect...Quote:
Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle
Isn't that basically the definition of market manipulation?Quote:
Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle
I very much doubt Apple and their ludicrously priced lawyers would be that stupid TBQH.
If they have been working on their own tech for a couple of years now, there is every possibility they will just step away from Imagination and use their market and financial grunt to swat away any patent infringement law suits, valid or not.
Yeah you're right it's probably all sorts of illegal if it could proven to be a deliberate act, but there must be prior cases of companies making announcements that affect another's value and then later snapping them up cheaper... I can't think of one however.Quote:
Originally Posted by Biscuit
Apple were working on their own tech for a while but there were purchase talks with Imagination, one theory would be that Apple just wanted the patents but they didn't want to buy Imagination for the money being asked. Perhaps Apple hope to force Imagination into accepting patent licensing terms that are favourable to Apple before Imagination get bought by someone with more clout to enforce patents and demand higher fees.
Perhaps I have been staring at the computer too long and Imagination are just a classic unfortunate victim of a big client going their own way and Apple don't give two-hoots.
If Apple try to license Imagination patents after this I suspect Imagination will take legal action. Apple very deliberately announced that they will not be licensing Imagination technology, and that announcement caused significant damage to the value of Imagination. I don't know the full details of the legalities, but i'm pretty sure that there's some kind of come back if they deliberately make false announcements about future tech products that will influence market activity...Quote:
Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle
Well its not a false announcement if Apple do actually have their own GPU and then use it? Imagination's only option for revenue then is licensing patents that cover elements of Apple's design, and since they are cash starved and under public pressure maybe they will take a lesser deal...Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
Despite being on the inside I have no idea if Apple are going to buy us out, all I can say is that quite a few of our former employees are now theirs, so this being an elaborate scheme to buy us out seems unlikely.Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
lol, that is exactly what I thoughtQuote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
Isn't the Metal API aimed squarely at these GPUs? So if they don't behave very similar, they break software compatibility?
<sharp intake of breath>
Should have used Vulkan :)