It comes as no surprise the AMD in struggling in the face of fierce opposition on two fronts. Intel has a firm grasp on the CPU and integrated graphics markets, while NVIDIA continues to outplay it in the enthusiast 3D arena. The company has already downsized in an effort to stay competitive, but it looks like it might be taking things a step further by splitting itself in two.
Nothing concrete has been decided at this stage, but “preliminary” talks have been had, according to Reuters’ Liana Baker. Baker writes that AMD has called in a “consulting firm” to put together various options for carving the company up, with one interesting proposal seeing AMD separating its graphics and server businesses.
If you’re not up-to-date on AMD’s history, it acquired 3D hardware developer ATI back in 2006. It maintained its brands, such as RADEON, but consolidated the rest under the AMD moniker. So to hear it might be doing the reverse (to a degree) is eyebrow-raising news.
When the acquisition first happened, there were a lot of upsides — the closer integration of CPU and GPU, which has sort of panned out with AMD’s Fusion / APU platform. It seems to have helped it tie up both Microsoft and Sony for their respective consoles, but Intel remains the dominant force when it comes to integrated hardware almost everywhere else.
For now, it’s something to keep an eye on and if the split does occur, it’ll be interesting to see how AMD goes about it.
[Reuters]