News - Oracle sets its sights on chipmaker acquisitions

[HEXUS]

Will Oracle add AMD, Nvidia or ARM to its shopping list?

Read more.

[Brewster0101]

Didn't realise Oracle had so much money... Hope they leave AMD alone..

[badass]

Didn't realise Oracle had so much money... Hope they leave AMD alone..

Why? With Oracle's backing, AMD would have the backing of a company with a larger market cap than Intel (although a little over half the earnings)

[tickedon]

Why? With Oracle's backing, AMD would have the backing of a company with a larger market cap than Intel (although a little over half the earnings)

AMD as a company right now have to focus on two things: producing good CPU's and GPU's (and, well, putting them both together for 'fusion').

If AMD was part of a much larger company, especially one like Oracle where the focus is on enterprise systems rather than system builds me and you might put together, that focus and edge *could be* lost. In many cases, you just become another department, segment or subsidiary fighting for some investment and R&D money in a much larger machine.

Not saying that would happen but it's a risk. So I'd prefer them to leave AMD alone too

[crossy]

Why? With Oracle's backing, AMD would have the backing of a company with a larger market cap than Intel (although a little over half the earnings)

Yeah, if you look at the raw "dollars and cents" then sure, taking over AMD makes sense for both companies. Trouble is that - as can be seen from the Sun takeover - Oracle have probably got past the size where they can manage new acquisitions effectively.

I'm sure Intel would probably welcome Oracle "helping" AMD - because it'd more or less hand Intel the desktop and laptop markets. Also I'm going to suggest that if you're running Intel chips on your desktop and in the box in your briefcase, then you're going to be favourably disposed towards that same maker for your servers. Finally can you see Oracle wanting to continue developing any of the ATi ranges? I can't!

So like "Brewster101" I'm hoping that AMD stay independent, if for no other reason than to keep the pressure on Intel.

Can't see IBM wanting to give up their fabs to Oracle (remember that Oracle are just as much as competitor to Big Blue as HP are these days), but I'm wondering what a potential Oracle takeover of ARM would do to all those ARM-derivatives, like the Snapdragon processors in many mobile phones?

[Barakka]

Can't see IBM wanting to give up their fabs to Oracle (remember that Oracle are just as much as competitor to Big Blue as HP are these days), but I'm wondering what a potential Oracle takeover of ARM would do to all those ARM-derivatives, like the Snapdragon processors in many mobile phones?

Although Oracle and IBM are competitors, don't forget the Sun factories make the i and p series systems for IBM and they're essentially the same kit as Sun so it would make sense in that way. However with IBM's fabrication being so far advanced of AMD or Intel would IBM part with it ? will be interesting to see how it pans out....

[crossy]

Although Oracle and IBM are competitors, don't forget the Sun factories make the i and p series systems for IBM and they're essentially the same kit as Sun so it would make sense in that way. However with IBM's fabrication being so far advanced of AMD or Intel would IBM part with it ? will be interesting to see how it pans out....

System i and System p ("iSeries" and "pSeries" are the old names) boxes - which are essentially interchangeable these days - are both based on Power5/6/7 processors made in IBM's East Fishkill (and the American's complain about British placenames!) fab. As far as I know, that fab - which is very large - also makes processors for other folks, notably the Power chips for the Wii. The i/p boxes are way different to their Sun equivalents!

Are you maybe getting confused (easily done where IBM's concerned) with the System x servers? These are Xeon and Opteron based, and I guess as such, equivalent to the old Sun Galaxy boxes - or whatever Oracle's renamed them too.

Like you though, I just can't see IBM wanting to hand Oracle their fabs - unless they've got an old one that they want to get shot of - they're just too key to their business, (and I'm sure that they don't want to give Oracle a hand up).

If Oracle want a chip fab, how about the one that Hyundai built down the road to me. Built, never used and sold to Freescale and then Motorola. Still sitting in mothballs, so I'm sure they could pick it up for firesale pricing. Heck, they might even get some dollars from the government to open it.