Does anybody know if the patent licensing is just CPU IP, or does it cover process technology also?
Not likely going to cover process technology, those are crown jewels which are usually transferred thru industrial espionage, mystery and intrigue. Mostly just thru espionage.
One important question that I had that hasn't been answered - is AMD's x86 license (the NEW license) considered to be transferrable, in case some other company (perhaps NVidia?) buys out AMD?
That might have been a worthwhile provision to put into the agreement. It makes AMD all that more valuable to be acquired. If it's not transferrable, that just means a long, slow death, or perhaps a lingering limbo existance, for AMD.
No doubt AMD would have wanted as many restrictions as possible eliminated whereas Intel would have wanted as many restrictions as possible to be invoked. I don't see AMD prioritizing the elimination of this particular restriction over other the other restrictions that have been eliminated (ability to use foundries).
I want Bulldozer here earlier as well. But how could that possibly be the case? Was Bulldozer delayed due to financial reasons? Or due to the threat of having the license revoked? By my understanding, those weren't a factor, so it seems unlikely.
However, another way of looking at it might be that the lack of money / R&D funds is probably a bottleneck in BD development? Is that even possible? This late in the development, would a sudden injection of cash lead to faster deployment? I know that might seem a common sense way to approach things (more cash on the problem = faster deployment) but that isn't always the case - for example, in a software development project, spending more cash to hire more developers in the middle of a project that's behind schedule doesnt make a project finish faster, it makes the project later.
I'd say let's ask IDC but I'm almost half-afraid already since he's spelled doom for both companies for very different reasons (in a very tongue-in-cheek way, AMD is doomed for sucking, while Intel is doomed for being too awesome for the competition. What a world!)
Cash always helps, a cash injection right now into bulldozer could help speed things up by no more than 4-6 months tops though, and even then the burn rate on that cash would be rather high.
However it is rather unlikely that AMD would elect to do that, they have publicly stated that their short-term and long-term R&D budget is targeting <23% revenue. If they were to dump a bunch of cash into BD that percentage would sky-rocket like Japan's debt as a percentage of their GDP and you would see Dirk foisted upon his own petard. (that is to say he'd be bounced at the next board of directors meetings for failing to set institutional investor expectations appropriately)
No, rather AMD management is stuck in a hard-spot if they wish to boost R&D spending as a means to enhance their chances of developing ever more competitive products. In order to do that they need to increase revenue proportionately such that they can increase R&D spending without increasing the revenue-percentage footprint it occupies on the balance sheet.
And how do you raise revenue? Two ways - organic growth and M&A.
Organic growth isn't going to occur in any dramatic fashion for AMD so long as their competition is Intel. They will occupy the sub-20% marketshare forever and ever. So I'd be looking for Dirk to be pursuing some M&A activity with their new found cash in the coffers over the next 3-6 months as they try and "buy revenue" such that expanding the R&D budget doesn't violate the traditional "must keep R&D under 25% of revenue" mantra that all american companies recite 5 time before going to bed every night.
Intel delays are even more BS.
Because Intel at least has a fully working chip, but there just too cheap to release it on the market.
And they blame it on BS reasons.. like not enough tweeks in FAB process... or some other things they can push launch off for.
Aigo, Intel is a "gross-margins" company. They are not a cpu, graphics ror SSD company. They manufacture gross margins and their main product is INTC. They will only do things that they believe will improve the value of their main product, and wall street has repeatedly affirmed for them that the value of the their product, INTC, is tightly coupled to the gross margins they engineer and manufacture in selling all that other crap to us consumers.
Intel could have had the option of selling gulftown 6yrs ago for all the money they have in their bank account, the fact they've taken their sweet time waiting this long to get to even this point in the release timeline has everything to do with ensuring they can maximize gross margins when they finally do bring it to market.
You can gloss over the cold-hard borg-like beauty of all that and just label it as "BS" if you like but I really don't see it like that at all. If Intel can't see the gross margins story in the product then they aren't going to pursue putting it on the market until they see there way to it. Wallstreet will punish them mercilessly if they do otherwise.
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