Re: Not Surprising
Question for shareholders: is management spreading themselves too thin working on such diverse product lines?
NVIDIA led the GPU revolution from mere display cards to GPUs being a central part of computing today. Could/would they have done that if they were protecting a large-volume CPU franchise at the same time? Tech history has many stories of diverse companies killing off or crippling new products because they would replace/cannibalize their existing product lines. NVIDIA had one line of business, and focused on it very well.
GPU is very difficult to design, build software for, and sell. NVIDIA does all this very well. AMD/ATI does this very well too.
FPGA is very difficult to design, build software for, and sell. Xilinx does all this very well.
CPU is....etc etc etc.
Can AMD management handle all three (CPU, GPU, FPGA) at the same time?
I doubt it; they'll try, but it is a seriously difficult issue. Look at IBM, they are starting to divest unmanageable products/services. Look at Intel, selling off McAfee, and, years ago, network lines.
When IBM bought RedHat, the nay-sayers were rife, predicting the demise of the whole franchise, with good (historical) reasons. It hasn't happened yet, but will.
AMD is following the same road.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
