Slashdot Mirror
Speculation On AMD Buying Transmeta
Nuke Skyjumper writes: "According to a report on CNBC, it appears AMD is interested in purchasing Transmeta. I wonder what the implications for Linus, and in particular, Linux would be?" With the recent agreement between them, some people see them working even more closely together. But there's been a lot of hot air about this before - I think at one point people had been talking about Transmeta buying AMD. But, as always, time will tell.
It will help both of them tremendously(sp?). Transmeta brings in their knowledge of VLIW processors and AMD brings in their high MHz (and low Ghz) processors. Both of these factors are needed to beat Intel and (in the not too distant future) Apple. A 2Ghz, 64bit, VLIW CPU would be very pimp.
Mark Duell
I really don't see how such speculation merits front-page treatment. Slashdot's pro-Transmeta propoganda should have died off as soon as it was clear that Transmeta's chips are not the cure for Microsoft, world hunger, and freedom for all.
--
I love what AMD did to the price of processors...they're the only reason I was able to move out of my Cyrix PR200. I think Transmeta would do well with a company that has large venture capital and a big linux fanbase (if /. comments are any indication). That coupled with the nonpositive public response to P4 and IA-64, AMD might very well step in front of Intel if this were to go through.
Whats with the obsession of claiming that links are to that evil site (which I wont name). This one even claims that Hemos put in a link (but he didnt). Grr.. the trolls are starting to bother me!
Mark Duell
This article only discusses the buyout as a speculation on the part of the author. He is showing agreements between the compaines as a lead for a merger. This is not even news....Just a large editorial on a slow news day....Guess the managing editors were making bets on the Superbowl....:)
I'm guessing if AMD actually does have any real plans to buy Transmeta, it's largest concern is Transmeta's supposed lower power consumption.
There is other technology there they would be interested in, I know... but AMD is doing pretty poorly against Intel in the mobile market, for now anyway.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I'm interested in buying Transmeta too.
Take Paypal?
I'm no scientist but I would say this would be a bad move for AMD. AMD has been doing an OK job on their own, creating creating chips. They have managed to keep out of the news unlike Intel who rumor has it, may be facing the same role as Microsoft with the Department of Justice.
As for Transmeta, they have their own niche in the market and should stick to their focus, many businesses with strong policies on their business models and focusing on those models do rather well, unlike others who try to carry the world on their shoulders such as Lucent who is getting slightly pounded, possibly from jumping into too many different segments and forgetting their core business model. (sounds correct although I am tired)
How significantly would AMD captive anything in the processor sector buy purchasing Transmeta? Not much, they should save the money for hard times and focus on their own stuff instead of trying to have their cake and eating someone else's.
Home sweet home
"When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and friends crazy, but when I am buddha, nobody is upset at all"
Actually, the buyout and merger trend has come nearly to a halt after the general stock price decline in the last 6 months and after several big mergers resulted in failure (especially the DaimlerChrysler one). "Bigger is Better" has reached its limits.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Not to mention that AMD already is licensing the most important thing it could get from Transmeta -- the code-morphing tech so that they can simulate their upcoming chips.
If Transmeta had some fab capacity of their own, it might be different, but IBM produces their chips, and I don't think AMD's quite ready to buy IBM. :-)
Maybe in a couple years when AMD has an extra couple billion dollars sitting around and/or Transmeta's stock crashes, but for now, AMD is selling every Athlon they can produce without any help. There's just no good financial or technical reason for AMD to do this right now, not in their current position.
This is natural fallout to the very unnatural mass rush of IPOs we have had in the past couple of years. Of course there will be some consolidation. I am just glad it is AMD instead of Intel. AMD has done a great job of keeping prices low and performance high.
Enigma
Enigma
Regarding Transmeta, my company is developing some internet appliances using Crusoe. Maybe you'll not believe me, but the prototype boards are the primary development platform. People are even compiling XFree86 on them!
By the way, am I the first in the world to run Digger under Linux+DOSEMU on Crusoe?
C'mon now ppl, how many times have you heard this kind of thing before..?? Some guy just made a killing on Wall Street because of this CNBC article and now he is laughing his ass off probably on the way to the Maldives..:) After the problems TimeWarner/AOL have had with the internation component of their merger and the Bush Govt. undecided on DOJ/MS case and their own policies do you REALLY think Transmeta or AMD would do this now??
" The best Bucket is a SCREAMING one "
I don't care as long as the technology gets used.
IMHO, Transmeta has come up with one of the coolest ideas in computer history: they're making a platform designed for dynamic recompilation. If it gets buried, I'll be sad.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
AMD makes fast quality chips for less. The problem is AMD chips runs too hot. people don't want to have to buy a 300W power supply to run a thunderbird. Maybe this speculative "buy-out" will let AMD adapt some Transmeta technology to make their chips run cooler.
My Duron melted my copper heat sink...
Remind me never to trust you on anything requiring an understanding of statistical trends. Because of a 6 month trend, put against the backdrop of 20+ years of massive mergers all over the board, you conclude "mergers are over for good"? Jeez.
Vive le Québec libre, 'sti!
I hope this doesn't offend the poster, or any of the slashdot "elders", but I am sick and tired of this type of post.
1. Does anyone really care if a failing, over-hyped company such as transmeta may get bought out?
2. Is anyone else sick of "What will this do to Linux" posts?
3. C'mon people, there are plenty of good stories, and I would like there to be a Senseless speculation and/or Linux fears category.
Every day, it seems, there is a new post, about a big evil corporation with plans to fork linux, or perhaps spoon linux, or perhaps make Linus a job offer...
At least discussion of the MPAA gets me fired up & frustrated with stupid laws.
I urge others to speak-up if they too would like a seperate board/section for these stories.
Please - no offense to the poster, this is about the quality and usefullness of slashdot only.
I survived the hype of survivor.
Transmeta is all vaporware, a couple of well known figures, and a chaos.
But, hey! in 3 years they could bring us another PC chip ;)
The article notes the point that who is going to want to run a server with Transmeta's watered-down chip? Furthermore, is the ability to extend battery life a couple hours a good trade-off for processing power?
While I can see several niche markets where this might be useful, I'm wondering if Transmeta can survive in the long term with what its done so far.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Transmeta + Linus != Linux.
Linus has said many times that he's not interested in the commercial parts of Linux, it's just a hobby for him. If AMD were to buy out Transmeta and try to force Linus to put pro-AMD code into the kernel, he'd likely quit Transmeta, or at least tell AMD to go screw themselves. Transmeta has nothing to do with Linux, aside from the fact that one of the people working there happens to ALSO work on Linux in his spare time.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
The article basically is nothing but hot air. AMD doesn't seem to have any plans to invest in, let alone buy Transmeta. They have used some of Transmeta's technology, so what? The story is pretty lame, no content at all, just mere speculation. And Hemos, btw. what does this have to do with Linus, let alone Linux? If this is the hottest news you can find, you should perhaps consider a job change ...
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))
I know this is not completely on-topic, but I have to say it.
:)
Right now there aren't many processor manufacturers in the whole computer industry (PC, Apple, pda's, web appliances, etc). You have Intel, AMD, Transmeta, Motorola, IBM, Sun, Alpha. I know there are more, but those are the major players atm. If I missed any, feel free to add them to this list.
So what happens when one of them dissapears? Less choice, less competition. And no matter what these companies will promise (saying that they will keep their speed in developing new technology, and keep costs low) it won't happen. Because developement is driven mainly by competition, and not much else.
I lived for a long time in a comunist (now ex-comunist) country, Romania. And I've seen what happened in an economy that lacked any form of competition. In the 1970s, during a brief period of change in politics, the government bought a lot of top of the line technology (cars, computers, and a lot of other high-tech stuff). But only a few years later, things turned to worse, because the president of the time, Ceausescu closed off the trade with the Western Europe and the US. The decision was to run everything within Romania, without any world contact.
Fast forward to the 1990s... The car designs that were bought in 1968, the Renault 12, was still being built, in it's original shape and form (nothing changed on it). The top of the line computers were some 8086 clones. Everything had stagnated, as if for the whole 20-something years that Romania closed off its borders nothing had happened.
Now granted, this is an extreme case, and the chances of this happening in a capitalist society are very slim. But some of these effects can (and do) take place every day. So I really think that AMD buying Transmeta (or the other way around) can be a very bad thing.
Oh, come on. Can you imagine the public outcry if they tried something like that? Not that it would make any difference - Linus has little to do with IA64 support in the kernel. Besides can you see Linus accepting that? Personally I credit him with a bit more integrity than that. It's not like he'd have difficulty finding another job.
Why do you think faster processors are the only way to beat Intel?
You know what I'm desperately hoping for?
Computers that are Fast Enough. Are Macs? I dunno, I guess they might be.
Not only are they *fast enough*, but they are engineered. Quiet. Cool. Easy to upgrade and fix. Useable. Reliable.
I'm drawing qualities from cars; at first they were simple, crude, and very expensive. Elite, even. Eventually they became extensions and expressions of our personality. They became specialized, tailored, fashionable, and above all, reliable. They don't regularly crash and stall, now.
I want computers the same. Notebooks, desktops, TiVos, communications devices, consoles, etc.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
AMD-TM
Meta Advanced Devices
Athlon, Duron, Cruson?
can we expect a barrage of silence from AMD now? :)
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
1. Please give me an example of a corporation bigger than the US government. The statistical trends are clear, places where government does most things are poor and the common people have measurably worse lives than in places where government is limited and corporations do most things in society.
2. Assigning blame isn't the point of the exercise when the issue is monetarily getting screwed over. Joe sixpack doesn't go to court if coke is priced too high, he just stops drinking it. If Intel, AMD, & Transmeta would collude to raise CPU prices 10x you would have a renaissance of mac sales, Alphas would become a force in the consumer market, and even Sparcs would have a renaissance period.
In short, you sound like some bitter socialist who's sad that Gorbachev's teaching in San Francisco instead of running the USSR.
DB
I heard a while ago that one of the things Transmeta was actively pursuing was PowerPC emulation.
AMD's volume profits could comfortably absorb the cost of selling the chips at prices competitive with Motorola immediately, and even with the lower-than-average performance of the Transmeta chip, a 1.5-2GHz Code-Morphing Athlon would likely whup any Moto. G3/G4 in non-Altivec benchmarks.
If I were looking for the fastest way to support MacOS 9 (will be important for at least the next year) and MacOS X on the x86 platform, then something pretty similar to a Duron with a Transmeta PPC-emulation layer might just be the way.
Apple have proved they have the marketing department and design group from hell, and an OS (Mac OS X) that needs to pick up serious attention outside the existing Mac market to bring Apple profits up. That means selling lots of machines into the hands of people who have never before owned a Mac.
Not easy when your fastest model runs at 700MHz and costs US$5000 without a monitor.
I don't think i can buy an AMD or Intel chip less than 600MHz at the moment, and Motorola are not going to be able to double their clockspeed this year.
Apples biggest problem currently is MHz... even though it might only perform like a PPC of half the clockspeed, it would be good for Apple to be able to advertise '1.5 GHz Macs'.
Apple could continue to offer Altivec models to the scientific, creative and education industries
while targeting the G3-alike AMD chip at corporate/home users.
It might not encode MPEG-2 in realtime in software, but it'll run MS-Office like a raped ape.
And, sadly, thats all the computer buying public seem to give a shit about these days.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
What would all this do to linux? Not much I'm sure because linux runs all over the place on both Intel and AMD chips. If they said to Linus "You can only develop kernels that work on AMD proc's" (like someone up top said) then people would just diverge from the new updates and do their own right? And wouldn't that just defeat the purpose of linux anyways - to have someone dictate when, where and on what you could run it.
Come on people... If anything it would get a major hardware maker in the linux corner - plus the chips they make at Transmeta are x86 emulated chips.
Hell we could see linux shipping with new pc's that have AMD chips... but i doubt it.
AMD isn't buying Linus.
Oh, and doesn't AMD already have a bigger market share than Intel, I heard that on CNBC like 6 months ago, and people are still talking about them taking charge.
I run an AMD and love it, my 750 Athlon is fast enough to reboot into linux after my roomates run a windows session it doesn't bother me they are still in the dark ages of computing.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I suppose there's also the issue of the Linux trademark... While Linus is a benevolent dictator, it's ok, but there are plenty of risks here...
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
I doubt Transmeta's IP is worth anywhere near that. Other people know quite well how to build fast low-power processors or how to create processors with adaptable instruction sets. Besides, the x86 architecture will be getting less and less important over the upcoming years.
What if AMD and Transmeta got together, and created a chip as powerful as the Thunderbird, cheap as the Duron, and able to dual boot any x86 operating system, or run PPC OS's like say, Mac OS X? I may be wrong, but can't Transmeta chips do something similar anyways? I mean, run a different operating system by compiling it in real time? I don't totally understand the way it works, so if someone could explain, that'd be niftyroo.
F-18's --- Gear Up, Flaps Up, Nozzle OUT baby!
I think this guys right, maybe we will see a convergence of PC's and Apple's. AMD's in Macs that can also run linux. Who doesn't win?
Maybe Linus should just buy AMD himself (I'd donate a couple bucks) and implement the whole thing and in the mean time kick Bill Gates out.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Haha. You undermine your own argument. The US has the biggest government of any country, and the largest economy. How come then, since the US government is less limited than in any other country in the world, you imply that people in he US don't live worse lives?
Assigning blame isn't the point of the exercise when the issue is monetarily getting screwed over.
Who was talking about monetarily getting screwed over? I'm talking about *really* getting screwed over-- being shut out from information, being denied needed medical care, being denied insurance coverage you paid for, being poisoned by toxic waste, etc.
Vive le Québec libre, 'sti!
The statistical trends are clear, places where government does most things are poor and the common people have measurably worse lives than in places where government is limited and corporations do most things in society.
Absolute garbage. People in Western Europe have a much better quality of life (Britain excepted as the 51st state anyway) due to the government providing things that corporations wouldn't provide, such as quality universal health care, good quality and cheap public transport and housing for all. No-one has to live in a trailer in Europe for example.
Outcry? What outcry? Public outcry? About what?You must be on crack. Where they actually to pull a stunt like that I'm sure Linus would just tell them to fuck off and then proceed to sift through the stack of job offers he keeps in his closet.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Yeah, I doubt that he'll have much problem. :-) I can only imagine what his resume looks like (not that he'd probably need one).
Seriously, just for starters I imagine IBM would hire him (and the rest of the kernel bigwigs) in a heartbeat, as would Intel, as would AMD, as would Motorola, as would any of the big linux solutions providers, as would any of the national laboratories in several countries (educational or "other"), as would the technical branches of several government's intelligence agencies, etc. etc. etc.
So yeah, I don't think that any of these folks would be out beer money if {Transmeta|VALinux|redHat|whatever} fell over and died tomorrow. ;-)
--
Fuck Censorship.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Any story, even non-existent stories like rumors, get mention on Slashdot so long you mention the magic word "Linux"
Pathetic
---
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
Why don't you first learn how not to misinterpret what other people say, buddy? Did I say "over for good?" No. I said "has reached its limits". Meaning that it's down to normal levels (it is a perfectly normal things: some industries become less important and can't anymore support as many companies as before, while new ones rise) instead of the insane feeding frenzy we've seen.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Makes a lot sense to me. AMD has got to be thinking about what to do next. What kind of CPU does the market need that it doesn't have? One that can efficiently virtualize the x86 architecture, i.e., allow software like VMWare to be created without the performance hit. One that can compete in additional CPU markets like PowerPC and Alpha. One that make AMD into an innovator rather than a clone-maker. TransMeta has that kind of technology and talent pool.
AMD is looking for a partner to help finance its third fab (to be completed in 2003 or 2004). Now, they had the same plan for their Dresden fab, which turned out to be a ruse to lower Intel's guard (surprise, nothing but GHz-class Athlons!), but this time, why not merge with Transmeta? They're already cooperating, Transmeta could use part-ownership in a state-of-the-art fab, it'd expand AMD's market into webpads and whatnot, and it might actually push AMD's P/E ratio out of the single digits. Oh yes, and AMD has about $1.3 BILLION in cash on hand, which is a tad more than Transmeta has (cough!).
Yes, this does make more sense for Transmeta than for AMD, but a merger is still plausible. AMD bought NexGen for their cool technology, and wound up with the P3-whomping Athlon. They could do it again.
Ok. I am at a loss as to how this could really effect Linux. Sure Linus works for Transmeta, and I am sure he is damn good at what he does. If anything, AMD could punt him (with a hefty severence package) and he would have more time to work on his pet creation. Or he could go to work for one of the many Linux cash-grab companies out there. Orrr, AMD could think; "Hell, we have Linus on the payroll. That can't be a bad thing." I just love how soo many stories get manipulated in such a way that the smallest association with Linux actually turns into the main content. I would be more concerned as to what will happen to those Crusoe (sp?) chips. Will AMD swallow it up into a K6-4? K7-Mobile-2? Or will it continue as a brand with AMD using some of the (very good) tech knowledge in their own products. *sigh* tinfoil.music http://music.tinfoil.net
Joe McGuire
tinfoil.music
tinfoilmedia
Remember a little company called NexGen? AMD bought them a few years ago. The direct result of that buyout was the K5/K6 product line - and we all know how THAT turned out.
ahahaha
AMD + Transmeta ~= AMD
(neary equals to)
IMHO
. . .the biodegradeable "Crouton" processor. With optional cache of bacon bits. . . .
There's a heck of a lot of x86 software floating around out there, so well-performing emulation (in my opinion) will be critical to acceptance by large businesses.
Hemos, you ought to be ashamed. After posting the story this morning with your comments about Linus and Linux in it, and then seeing all the comments about how lame and alarmist it was, you go and change the story, make it look like you're the calm and collected one, and don't even post a note that it's changed?
Did you think people wouldn't notice?
-Todd
---
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Just remove them and watch what happens. I guarantee you it won't be a pretty sight.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Hay thar.
You're barely worth even arguing with.
Goverment size is measured as a precentage of Gross National Product. Not by simply looking at the raw size of the government.
The little socialist havens have far 'bigger' governments when measured in this fashion.
Hay thar.
And now for Something Completely Different in Goat Sex.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Imagine how powerful Tux would become! Hell, he'd even start showing up on lunch pails ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Its ok for potential developers to test their software but a code morphing transmeta setup, setup to morph the hammer series would be much faster. Not at 1st, but the code morphine software speeds up as calculations get repeated - it adapts. This was showen when the emulaters.com bloke benchmarked it. The first time it performed pathetically but, as he repeated the benchmarks it kept improving & improving till it was almost matching a Celeron clock for clock.
The people in western europe also leech off of US defense guarantees (shaving 1-2% of free GDP otherwise needed to defend themselves) and US R&D (if you look at universal healthcare it is highly correlated to drastically lowered medical research spending). But the hot political reform trends are all about moving away from the cradle-to-grave socialist model toward the US model. Take a look at the mess the German Krankenkasse (sp?) are in. Unlike Canada, they have no free market healthcare nearby to ship their overload to so they are bankrupting themselves to pay for the lavish benefits.
All the other benefits on the list are on the same schedule as healthcare but either more or less advanced.
One comment on housing in Europe. At least the US never has the laughable spectacle of anti-squatters (netherlands) being paid to squat in buildings before real squatters get there and thus steal away property ownership.
DB
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!