Over the weekend a new rumor surfaced on the web, when you trace back the material from website tyo website it seems to source at 'industry sources', so in that respect I'd take the news with a large grain of salt. None the less, it is an interesting topic alright.
As it turns out, Microsoft might be interested in acquiring AMD. Given past week announcements with the newly created AMD Radeon group this all doesn't even sound too weird as their new CEO stated it would look into all open options. AMd has been struggling alright, and perhaps even acquiring isn't the right word from Fudzilla, a strategic financial partner could just as well be an option.
Of course Microsoft would have to compete with Nvidia. Linux fans of AMD GPUs would not be too happy about it, although Redmond has been getting more open source friendly lately.
When it comes to CPUs, the future Zen derivative could end up in the future Surface, you know the tablet that iPad Pro copied the form factor, the cover keyboard and the pen. AMD has a server division as well as computational division, everything that Microsoft uses. The fact that Raja Koduri, a man behind cool things at ART X and ATI Radeon R300 now runs Radeon Technology Group could mean that the company might be acquired in pieces too. We always suggested that one of the solutions is that AMD sells off GPU business to a company that would licence it back to AMD for its APU products.
Our well informed industry sources suggest that Intel is interested in the acquisition of AMD. Before you blast us with your comments, the world changed a few years back and Intel is not a monopoly anymore. Apple has quite big of a stake with iPads and companies like Samsung have their own SoCs that are used for their tablets and phones. Qualcomm and MediaTek got stronger as well. In this changed world Intel would have a chance to acquire AMD if it really wanted.
It is an intersting theory, but given the source again, this remains nothing more then just speculation from unknown sources. A very similar rumor already popped up back in June at Neogaf, so it might just be that somebody hogged that info and is reusing it.
Rumors like these we've seen multiple times in the past year from varying sources and varying interested parties.
