AMD sells 8.1 per cent stake to Abu Dhabi firm

Chip giant AMD today confirmed that it had received a significant cash injection from an investment outfit based in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company coughed up a considerable stack of money said to be around the $622m mark. Mubadala was given 49 …

[Darren Starr]

I told you so!

Well, I didn't tell you, but I had tons and tons of people telling me a while back when AMD started heading for the lead that Intel lost their edge and AMD just has better everything etc... Of course IA64 was almost a total waste of precious engineers by Intel, but it sure looked fun. Too bad SGI (one of my favourite old time companies lost their balls on itanium)

Anyway, point being, I was saying for a long time to these nut jobs, Intel has more R&D capitol than nearly any other company out there. They can afford to let AMD take a lead if it means stepping back from the cat and mouse chase game to do something impressive. After all, Intel can easily survive 6 consecutive bad quarters if they need to.

When Intel released Core and announced the coming Core 2, it was the end of AMD leading in technology. Now, AMD is losing the market share they grabbed up during the glory days.

P.S. - I have a personal vendetta against AMD over their early 486 clones. I couldn't afford Intel back then and instead of dumpster diving for tin cans to get an extra $50 off of deposit refunds, I spent all my money on an AMD chip. It was supposed to be really fast. Well, the catch was, I needed to spend $75 more on the motherboard to handle the $50 cheaper AMD chip because they clock doubled 40Mhz and during the "black era" of the PC, when nearly every build your own PC component was of crap quality or worse, VESA local bus cards maxed out at 33Mhz and IDE controllers and VGA cards would crash the systems more than periodically at higher bus clock rates. While AMD might have made a huge jump forward regarding quality since that time, I just still can't trust a company that always races to be first, fastest, etc... give me stable and proven any day.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Darren

Well I'm sorry you have sour grapes over what you consider to be a bad experience with AMD. I've always been quite happy with AMD, using them in every home machine I've owned for the last 10 years. Until very recently, at least in my opinion, AMD chips were more efficient than anything from Intel, ran mostly cooler, used less power, and were of course cheaper. Even AMD chips that benchmarks show are slower compared to Intel just seemed to 'feel faster' in day-to-day use.

Now however, I will likely consider purchasing an Intel chip for my next build not because of the speed increase, but because of AMD's "selling out" not just to a foreign investor, but to U.A.E., who I believe do much to support international terrorism.

Regards.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Darren Starr

You know, Darren, that whole "Sins of the father will be visited on the son for seven generations" thing wasn't meant to refer to processor technology...

[lglethal]

@ Anon Coward

That has to be the stupidest reason i have ever heard of not buying a computer component from a compnay!

I suggest that if you are concerned about this sort of thing that you not by anything from any company that manufactures or buys anything from:

a) China (known to happily support the burmese junta, sudanese government (and there bankrolled gungawiad militias) and iran with money, manufactured goods and weapons tech)

b) Russia (no need to explain this one).

c) USA (Worlds largest weapons exporter, responsible for more weapons being in circulation around the world then anyone else, large quantities of which now rest in the hands of terrorists. The US government where quite happy to bank roll the Al Qaeda predecessor groups in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Russians, so dont think your country's any cleaner!)

That should narrow down your choice for computer components a little bit eh? And everything else you buy in general!

Oh and im absolutely certain that if you checked who owned shares in Intel you would find Saudi, UAE and/or other Arab companies holding stocks. Will this mean you wont buy an Intel chip to? Could save you a heap of money as you wont be able to buy a computer but can sit on your high horse claiming you dont support terrorism by not buying a computer...

Idiot...

[Lyndon Barry]

Anonymous Coward

I live in the UAE and have done for almost a year. I've seen nothing to indicate that terrorism is supported in any way. In fact, most of the Arab people I've met have been extraordinarily gracious and kind, going out of their way to help. (Except on the roads where it's Mad Max time)

I agree much of the Middle East is volatile, but the UAE has very close ties with the West and it would be suicide to ruin that relationship.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Iglethal

First off, let me apologize in part for my snap judgement of the UAE. Although I still think it's a bad sign when company has to look outside of the US for a life preserver. Now that that's said, let's analyze your counter arguments:

a) Ok, China's pretty bad, but since when has any US company taken advantage of Iran's extensive high-tech manufacturing facilities and extensive natural resources? I don't recall seeing a "made in Iran" label yet...

b) Please do explain this one... Aside from the horror stories of the Russian mafia and splinter groups, what's wrong with purchasing anything from Russia... last I checked, we were allies. Should we just kick them forever while they're down?

c) While the US may of late turned into more of a scumbag than I'd like, and I don't think the country is "any cleaner", as you put it, taking foreign investments to 'bail out', is usually the first death knell of a company---and with a high-tech company like AMD, I'm sure any and every third-world nation would happily line up to suck them dry of technological secrets. In 5-10 years then you have foreign nations with cheap, near slave labor undercutting anything you can produce and making it impossible for domestic businesses to compete. (to say nothing of the boost in foreign weapons programs from the infusion of high tech)

And I cetainly owe you an apology for the last statement you make. I'm glad you're 'absolutely certain' that Intel is being bankrolled by the Saudis, etc. Thank you so much for extensively doing your homework here. And I didn't realize that you were chummy enough with the Intel board that they revealed to you the source of their capital.

If a company does something you don't believe in, I think that's first and foremost the main reason you shouldn't support them... "Oh look, I can save a few bucks and have this bitchin' machine by buying from Wal-mart. Who cares who they're in bed with, I just saved $99!"

I do apologize to Lyndon Barry although I still believe that much Middle East money is funneled to overt terrorist organizations (and I don't mean from Iraq)

P.S. Iglethal--too worked up to check spelling/grammar?