Ever since Oracle's CEO, Larry Ellison, said last month that he might contemplate buying a semiconductor company, we've all wondered just what the man is thinking.
Reuters yesterday speculated that Oracle might buy AMD and it's not as nutty an idea as it might seem. First, Oracle could buy AMD and in doing so would grab quite a chunk of intellectual property.
But if it did so, we wonder how AMD customers - like HP and IBM for example - would feel about buying X86 chips from a company with which they directly compete?
It certainly would be a bold move - and say what you like about Larry Ellison - he's got gumption in bucketloads. AMD isn't a real man any more - it doesn't have fabs, so the deal wouldn't put that particular albatross around Larry's gullet.
In fact, Oracle buying AMD would galvanise the entire industry and throw it into a state of confusion.
The only real man in the X86 semiconductor business is Intel, and we can't imagine those guys would be entranced by the prospect of competing with Oracle. Oracle has just got so much software and other stuff in its stack - while Intel, for reasons that still puzzle us - has, er, McAfee.
AMD's share price on the NYSE closed at $6.94 last night; Oracle's at $27; and Intel's at $18.92.
It would do no good for Oracle to buy AMD. Without the x86 licenses, AMD would be worthless. And Intel could work around not having access to AMD's x86 based IP. Wouldn't be easy, but they could do it. Not so AMD.
Stupid idea, but not surprised someone suggested it.
Larry said he wants a semiconductor firm and he also wants IP. AMD don't own x86, the foundation for most of their technology, therefore as Rich points out it wouldn't be inconceivable for Intel to pull the rug from under, so to speak.
I would suggest ARM is a much better match for Oracles aspirations, i.e.: world domination. Oracle, currently, has few interests in mobile/application-specific computing, buying ARM would, essentially, make them owners of this market. And also the forthcoming, ultra low-power server farms market. They already have HPC computing.
Intel and AMD will both be resigned to legacy jack of all trades, master of none desktop/laptop/server computing. I don't think many realise but x86 is actually dead in the water, most people just don't realise it...
"Oracle wouldn't exist if it weren't for government contracts," said Mike Wilson, author of the book The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison.
The Exalogic Elastic Heavens - Cloud in a Box - behold the chips - an InfiniBand of possibilities. At the Churchill Club, he besmirched marketing hype passing for technical innovation, and at OpenWorld, he praised tangible technology that is what he hypes.
Ellison, a "scale-up" kind of guy, aims to become the Steve Jobs of Big Business, Big Brother and "what about you? Do you find it... wisible... when I say the name... Biggus Dickus?"