amd completely missed the boat by not getting into mobile market

[IlllI]

i've felt for a few years now that they could have captured a decent chunk of phone/tablet market, if only they actually tried. Seeing nvidia doing really good stuff in mobile realm just makes me sad of what could have been.

I think at this point even if AMD tried, they would not gain any traction since the market is well established. Just doesn't seem to be any room left for new players, since current existing companies have much more experience from years of working on mobile chips etc. I also think it was a poor decision to sell their small mobile division, to qualcomm for a measly 64 million. qualcom went on to become a heavyweight in the industry.

anyone else think amd missed some great opportunities? i know intel is struggling with mobiles too, but i think mainly for the same reason as amd probably would. intel was late to the party and missed a great opportunity. the only difference is intel has billions to spend on r&d, where amd is struggling to make ends meet.

 

[Genx87]

Selling what was essentially Snapdragon to Qualcomm for a mere 65 million has to be one of the biggest blunders in corporate history.

 

[R0H1T]

Selling Snapdragon to Qualcomm has to be one of the biggest blunders in corporate history.

You mean adreno GPU or Snapdragon, since ~

The original Snapdragon CPU, dubbed Scorpion, is Qualcomm's own design

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

Also as things stand now the mobile market is a race to the bottom & even though Intel is selling millions of Atom SoC's, without the contra revenue shenanigans they'd have been hard pressed to sell even a million or so to Android device makers !

 

[witeken]

They don't have a modem, though.

 

[NTMBK]

Nvidia are losing money on Tegra, not making it.

 

[Genx87]

You mean adreno GPU or Snapdragon, since ~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualcomm_Snapdragon

Also as things stand now the mobile market is a race to the bottom & even though Intel is selling millions of Atom SoC's, without the contra revenue shenanigans they'd have been hard pressed to sell even a million or so to Android device makers !

I dont know why people do this. You literally left off the last part of the sentence which is the most important in responding to my post.

The original Snapdragon CPU, dubbed Scorpion, is Qualcomm's own design, using assets the company acquired from AMD

Snapdragon is what it is today because of this acquisition from AMD. From a 65 Million dollar purchase Qualcomm was able to make billions.

 

[Denithor]

"One man's trash is another man's treasure."

Never more apt than in describing this fiasco for AMD.

 

[NTMBK]

I dont know why people do this. You literally left off the last part of the sentence which is the most important in responding to my post.

[/b]

Snapdragon is what it is today because of this acquisition from AMD. From a 65 Million dollar purchase Qualcomm was able to make billions.

...that isn't what Wikipedia says? The "from AMD" bit is on the GPU sentence:

Adreno, the company's proprietary GPU series, integrated into Snapdragon chips (and certain other Qualcomm chips) is Qualcomm's own design, using assets the company acquired from AMD.

 

[Genx87]

Adreno is a major component of snapdragon thought its life-cycle. Qualcomm has integrated their own arm design or used off the shelf arm designs for the CPU. But Adreno has been the GPU that has powered snapdragon. Without Adreno how successful would snapdragon have been in the smartphone market?

 

[NTMBK]

Adreno is a major component of snapdragon thought its life-cycle. Qualcomm has integrated their own arm design or used off the shelf arm designs for the CPU. But Adreno has been the GPU that has powered snapdragon. Without Adreno how successful would snapdragon have been in the smartphone market?

Oh, definitely. It's all about the whole package, CPU, GPU and modem. QQ had two of those, and Adreno gave them the last piece of the puzzle.

I just got confused by the mismatched Wiki quotes

 

[Vesku]

Nvidia are losing money on Tegra, not making it.

Yes, Nvidia is having a tough time breaking into mobile so I don't think AMD made a mistake. They don't have the marketing prowess nor the monetary resources of Nvidia. Also see Intel struggling to develop the modem tech to create a competitive SoC to Qualcomm and Mediatek.

I think AMD's biggest mistake has been not reining in the launch delays of their core product lines. Probably a very hard to remedy cash flow issue, though.

 

[Dribble]

Lot of what if's with AMD. Only one this is certain given a choice of things they could have done with their limited resources they haven't chosen particularly well. Now they are stuck with x86 cpu's that just can't compete with Intel, and gpu's that have fallen too far behind on efficiency perhaps due to their lack of mobile focus. That said not sure if mobile would have ended any better - they aren't nvidia, they don't have software and dev relations teams required to push your own product in a market where no one else is going to do the hard work (in x86 Intel does the pushing, and MS provides the software).

 

[sm625]

AMD didnt just miss the boat. They bought the boat from ATI, stripped out the handset division, and sold that to Qualcomm for $61 million. Qualcomm then turns around and makes 100 times as much and becomes a beast that could grow to be bigger than Intel. This story is so full of irony...

 

[Rakehellion]

They missed the boat in the desktop market too.

 

[Rakehellion]

Nvidia are losing money on Tegra, not making it.

And Intel. Don't forget them.

 

[NTMBK]

AMD didnt just miss the boat. They bought the boat from ATI, stripped out the handset division, and sold that to Qualcomm for $61 million. Qualcomm then turns around and makes 100 times as much and becomes a beast that could grow to be bigger than Intel. This story is so full of irony...

Meh, they didn't have a competitive ARM CPU design or a competitive modem- and they didn't have the money to go buy a modem company, like NVidia and Intel did (to mixed results). If they had tried to compete on GPU alone they would have done about as well as NVidia... Qualcomm didn't succeed because of the GPU, it succeeded because of the GPU, CPU and modem combined.

 

[Shehriazad]

Last time I checked AMD could be found inside Tablets...also Skybridge. Not sure how Skybridge was already forgotten.(ARM/AMD SoCs...initially planned for Tablets...but the step from Tablet to Phablets is incredibly small)

 

[Genx87]

Meh, they didn't have a competitive ARM CPU design or a competitive modem- and they didn't have the money to go buy a modem company, like NVidia and Intel did (to mixed results). If they had tried to compete on GPU alone they would have done about as well as NVidia... Qualcomm didn't succeed because of the GPU, it succeeded because of the GPU, CPU and modem combined.

Meh AMD could had slapped on a reference ARM design. And licensed a modem. They didn't need to knock a home run out with their CPU side given the GPU state. One thing I believe is Qualcomm would have had a tougher time establishing themselves without a good GPU and or the IP to build such a device.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Mobile is a rough sea to navigate. I'm 50/50 on whether AMD should have went after the mobile market, maybe if they had jumped in early. But AMD doesn't have the resources, if they went into mobile they would probably have to drop their APU stuff and go all in.

Very risky, even Intel with unlimited cash has been unable to crack the mobile code. Nvidia has all the GPU tech they need and are having a tough time as well.

 

[Genx87]

Mobile is a rough sea to navigate. I'm 50/50 on whether AMD should have went after the mobile market, maybe if they had jumped in early. But AMD doesn't have the resources, if they went into mobile they would probably have to drop their APU stuff and go all in.

Very risky, even Intel with unlimited cash has been unable to crack the mobile code. Nvidia has all the GPU tech they need and are having a tough time as well.

This sale happened in 2008. Right before the explosion in smart phones. And AMD had Adreno for ~2 years at that point. AMD would have been on the leading edge in a massive growth market. That growth would had funded their development of new designs. I cant begin to explain what AMD was thinking. Even in 2008 the writing on the wall was obvious where mobile phones were going. Instead they focused on a low growth market and worse a low margin product like their APUs.

 

[R0H1T]

The thing is you can't make a ton of money in this sector unless you're a vertically integrated player (like Apple or Samsung) with Qualcomm, Mediatek being exceptions cause the former was already deeply entrenched in this sector (for years) while the latter seemingly has an abundant supply of cheap Chinese labor.

This sale happened in 2008. Right before the explosion in smart phones. And AMD had Adreno for ~2 years at that point. AMD would have been on the leading edge in a massive growth market. That growth would had funded their development of new designs. I cant begin to explain what AMD was thinking. Even in 2008 the writing on the wall was obvious where mobile phones were going. Instead they focused on a low growth market and worse a low margin product like their APUs.

I think you're putting too much emphasis on something which may or may not have happened, even if AMD started making mobile chips back in 08 & NO it was only around 2010~11 that the smartphone boom happened & mainly due to Android's rapid development & Samsung focusing on droid phones.

 

[DownTheSky]

Sometimes I wonder what if ATI was still here and an AMD (or other) buy wouldn't have gone through.

 

[jhu]

i've felt for a few years now that they could have captured a decent chunk of phone/tablet market, if only they actually tried. Seeing nvidia doing really good stuff in mobile realm just makes me sad of what could have been.

I think at this point even if AMD tried, they would not gain any traction since the market is well established. Just doesn't seem to be any room left for new players, since current existing companies have much more experience from years of working on mobile chips etc. I also think it was a poor decision to sell their small mobile division, to qualcomm for a measly 64 million. qualcom went on to become a heavyweight in the industry.

anyone else think amd missed some great opportunities? i know intel is struggling with mobiles too, but i think mainly for the same reason as amd probably would. intel was late to the party and missed a great opportunity. the only difference is intel has billions to spend on r&d, where amd is struggling to make ends meet.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I wish I bought Qualcomm back in 2002. I'd be retired by now.

 

[turtile]

Well, their mobile division would be limited to tablets, if that today. AMD doesn't have any other mobile technology other than processors. Qualcomm is number one because they have everything in one package.

AMD and Intel didn't invest in mobile a long time ago because the margins and price were so low. Now if AMD licensed out their GPU tech to other companies, that could be good market. (but that would all depend on how the deal with Qualcomm was struck)

 

[escrow4]

Someone should buy out AMD and make billions out of it. The way AMD is going it won't be around in a few short years - I doubt AMD will still be around by 2020 unless they really turn around.