Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fallen Tech Star Imagination Technologies Up For Sale After Apple Row Bites (standard.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the silver-lightning dept.

UK chip designer Imagination Technologies -- which is in dispute with Apple, its largest customer -- has put itself up for sale. Shares in the company more than halved in April when Imagination said that Apple was to stop using its technology. From a report: The firm was regarded as a leading light in Britain's burgeoning tech sector, but ran into trouble when the phones giant, by far its biggest customer, said it would no longer rely on it for graphics design. Apple accounts for more than half of Imagination's revenues and last year held takeover talks with Imagination. Two parts of the business, MIPS and Ensigma, were already up for sale. Imagination said it has received "interest from a number of parties for a potential acquisition of the whole group." It is in "preliminary discussions" with the aid of bankers from Rothschild.

28 comments

  1. WHY DO PEOPLE PUT MILK ON THEIR CEREAL?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't know, I closed slashdot as soon as the fucking ad asked me at top volume!

  2. yo legendary first poster is back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i went to digg for a while with the cool kids
    but i am back and

    1. Re:yo legendary first poster is back by davester666 · · Score: 1

      ...now you have lost your mojo...

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  3. Almost sounds like... by sl3xd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It almost sounds like Apple decided that Imagination couldn't continue on its own for long, tried to buy it, the offer was refused, so Apple decided to leave them to their fate and moved on...

    --
    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    1. Re:Almost sounds like... by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's so common in business it's almost a tautology.

      Essentially, if your business' continued existence depends entirely on one supplier or customer... it's not YOUR business, you just haven't figured it out yet. You're more like a department of the supplier or customer's company, in that you are entirely subject to their whims.

      Sometimes - especially if it's a symbiotic relationship between companies that are essentially equally powerful - it works out. If, however, you're dealing with a megacorp like Apple and you're not also a megacorp, it's almost certain you'll eventually be crushed and then bought or replaced at some point.

      Usually the smaller company is greedy, thinking very short term and/or complacent, and entirely caught off guard when the end finally comes.

    2. Re:Almost sounds like... by sl3xd · · Score: 2

      I seem to recall something similar happened with MIPS in the past (ironically, Imagination owns MIPS): MIPS's new design was too important to SGI, and MIPS was in danger of going out of business... so SGI bought MIPS to keep them alive.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    3. Re:Almost sounds like... by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      And chances are, Apple will just pick up Imagination Technologies as well. It happens all the time - Jean-Louis Gassee tried to sell Be Inc. to Apple at a hugely inflated price (back in the old days just prior to Jobs' return). Apple decided Be wasn't worth that much and passed on the offer. Obviously they were hoping Apple was desperate enough to just pay anything. Of course, in the end, Apple did pay up... for NeXT, in a deal worth more than what Be was selling for.

      Right now, the only real thing Apple wants is the patents, and that's really all what Imagination had for Apple. Apple got fed up of paying Imagination's prices and ditched them.

      It's great to be greedy, but don't be surprised if the other company calls your bluff.

    4. Re:Almost sounds like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The patents are irrelevant now though. The important ones are the tile based renderer ones, which have all expired - hence why desktop graphics cards have suddenly dropped in power consumption in the past couple of generations.

    5. Re:Almost sounds like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With them stopping purchases of their parts, I suspect not. Intel MIGHT be one of the suitors. Even down to the MIPS parts. They're getting beat all to hell by ARM and MIPS stuff on the IoT and low-end. They use their GPUs on the lower end stuff. There's a couple of others. The site's other prospective Suitors...some make sense. Some DON'T. Apple's one that doesn't. Just because they're using their stuff now, the fact that they cut off use...buying it now would get Apple in a **LOT** of heat on the UK and US side for manipulation of stock valuations for that purpose. It can get Apple seriously SANCTIONED. So, no. Not Apple. Of the others, CEVA semi-makes sense. They'd probably like to own their own CPU instead of having to rely on Partners. Same with GPUs. So...they might be it, though it makes less sense than Chipzilla being the one possibly buying IMGTech.

  4. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Another proprietary, we don't release documentation, fu open-source hippies, company bites it. So what.

    1. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another proprietary, we don't release documentation, fu open-source hippies, company bites it. So what.

      Yes because Apple is so much better at releasing its specifications.

  5. So ends the saga of PowerVR by BenJeremy · · Score: 1

    They kept 3dfx honest, back in the day, much like the rivalry between AMD and Intel.

    IIRC, PowerVR used "tiling" and without looking up the details, I'll probably mangle the history, but it was an interesting blip in the development of GPUs.

    1. Re:So ends the saga of PowerVR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it was an interesting blip in the development of GPUs.

      You make it sound like PowerVR was just a competing product to the 3DFX Voodoo. They continued to make PowerVR chips long after that:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR

      Most of the iPhones use PowerVR (see GPU column):

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_mobile_application_processors#List_of_Apple_processors

      Without Apple they're now rather short on customers and in trouble. The Chinese seem to want their own processor technology so I could well see a Chinese company buying them out.

    2. Re:So ends the saga of PowerVR by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      You make it sound like PowerVR was just a competing product to the 3DFX Voodoo. They continued to make PowerVR chips long after that:

      They stopped making desktop graphics chips. The last desktop-class chip that PowerVR produced (the Kyro II, based on their third generation hardware) was released in 2001, which was roughly coincident with the end of 3dfx. PowerVR took the work that they had done on their fourth generation product, cancelled the Kyro 3, and retargeted it at mobile-class power loads. This resulted in the MBX and MBX Lite chips, one of which was used in the iPhone and iPhone 3G.

    3. Re:So ends the saga of PowerVR by David_Hart · · Score: 1

      it was an interesting blip in the development of GPUs.

      You make it sound like PowerVR was just a competing product to the 3DFX Voodoo. They continued to make PowerVR chips long after that:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR

      Most of the iPhones use PowerVR (see GPU column):

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_mobile_application_processors#List_of_Apple_processors

      Without Apple they're now rather short on customers and in trouble. The Chinese seem to want their own processor technology so I could well see a Chinese company buying them out.

      I don't ever remember PowerVR being a competitor for 3dfx Voodoo in Canada or the US. I remember Matrox and ATI being 3dfx competitors. Perhaps it was a regional thing since PowerVR is located in the UK. I had a VooDoo 2 card then upgraded to a Matrox G400.

      http://www.techspot.com/articl...

    4. Re:So ends the saga of PowerVR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Matrox did release PowerVR based products (long before the G400). So there it is.

  6. Apple has stolen all they need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    from Imagination, since they provided the circuit designs to Apple, who are now confident they can make a competitive chip based on Imagination's designs, and have their government keep their back so they will never go to court for it.

    The very particular disgusting flavor of American IP theft and protectionism.

    1. Re:Apple has stolen all they need by cheesybagel · · Score: 0

      No kidding. Then again that's Apple for you. Compare this with Qualcomm. When they needed a GPU design, they basically bought a small company a lot of people thought was vaporware, (Bitboys), and an ex-ATI team and made the Adreno GPU. Which they still use today.

  7. uh by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do you guys use a headline word salad generator?

    1. Re: uh by Entrope · · Score: 2

      Slashdot Noun Pile Headline Train Crash Ambiguity Puzzles Readers

  8. Dear Slashdot Your Headlines Suck by sootman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    please fix, kthxbye.

    Fun fact: you are NOT a printed newspaper, where every inch is precious. You can use things like pronouns, articles, the word "is", etc. (Oh look, sometimes you do -- the very next post is "Stephen Hawking Says He Is Convinced That Humans Need To Leave Earth".)

    Also, try to avoid slang. I'm not sure what is meant by "Apple Row Bites". I *think* it means they were hurt (bitten) by a fight (row) with Apple?

    OK, now I see that you simply copied the headline from the source -- But You Capitalized Every Word And Made It Worse. Can you see how much easier this is to read? "Fallen tech star Imagination Technologies up for sale after Apple row bites" It's arguable if you should use title case or not, but it's DEFINITELY wrong to capitalize every word. When I first read the headline, I thought it meant that technologies belonging to Tech Star Imagination were up for sale.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    1. Re:Dear Slashdot Your Headlines Suck by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      sounds like Commenter Upset Editors Fail Providing Headline Sufficiently Readable.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    2. Re:Dear Slashdot Your Headlines Suck by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

      This bugged me too, the title is nonsense. "Apple Row Bites" is not a thing, nor is it grammar. Perhaps it is slang in some small town in the UK? Google search for "row bite" only shows results for bedbugs. The copy and pasters have infiltrated slashdot, just like the rest of the computer world.

    3. Re:Dear Slashdot Your Headlines Suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Row Row Row Your Bytes
      Gently Down The Shore
      Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily
      Life Is But An Imagination Technology

    4. Re:Dear Slashdot Your Headlines Suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, I literally could not understand the title until after I read your normal version. With appropriate caps.
      I did years in print media and HATED the habit of all-initial-caps.

      And with today's penchant for naming companies and software after existing words with already long held definitions, (alphabet, agile, metal, carbon, etc.), it becomes worse! Because some of them do deserve to be capitalized but others don't, and when any of those words are used in their original definition, (not techy names), then it is indeed a jumbled salad of bs.

    5. Re:Dear Slashdot Your Headlines Suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's about apples stored in a row, and the apples happen to have sharp teeth. Or a person called Apple Row worked at PowerVR or a competitor or is a lawyer or from finance.

  9. flat look is out? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Were these the idiots responsible for flat look in apple's products?

    Because it'd be amazing if they stopped that shit and actually went back to making bugfixes for the 10,000 new features they feel compelled to bloat their products with lately...