AMD buys SeaMicro

[James]

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/02/29/a...t-a-buy-it-is/

[Seronx]

This is probably some big news

[realjjj]

As i posted in the comments,guessing AMD wants their interconnect fabric and IO virtualization,don't see a reason for AMD to care much about anything else.

Edit:
SUNNYVALE, CA, Feb 29, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SeaMicro, a pioneer in energy-efficient, high-bandwidth microservers, for approximately $334 million, of which approximately $281 million will be paid in cash. Through the acquisition of SeaMicro, AMD will be accelerating its strategy to deliver disruptive server technology to its OEM customers serving Cloud-centric data centers. With SeaMicro's fabric technology and system-level design capabilities, AMD will be uniquely positioned to offer industry-leading server building blocks tuned for the fastest-growing workloads such as dynamic web content, social networking, search and video.

http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74...576&highlight=

[alvter]

Lucky for me I have access to the WSJ.
I'm not familiar with SeaMicro, and I see this at AMD doing a Vertical merger. Questions to anyone who has a source:

1. Is AMD going to start selling their own brand of Servers?
2. Will this put strain on the relationships AMD has with current partners whom sell AMD based servers?
3. Will AMD be providing said technology to its Partners?

[James]

Originally Posted by alvter

Questions to anyone who has a source:

1. Is AMD going to start selling their own brand of Servers?
2. Will this put strain on the relationships AMD has with current partners whom sell AMD based servers?
3. Will AMD be providing said technology to its Partners?

I don't have access to any sources but AMD probably feels that they don't owe Dell anything. In fact they probably feel the same way about HP after how badly they dragged heels over Magny Cours.

Perhaps AMD is looking at it from the perspective of bobcat instead of bulldozer? Granted that is still some kind of competition with their other OEM's but not directly.

There is still a bit of "wait and see" on this move.

edit - just noticed realjjj's post above.

[realjjj]

It's not about the server it's about how you move the data and manage the flow,look at the press release ,the key words are "fabric", "building blocks".

Edit: lets not forget this headline from about a month ago : Intel Acquires Fabric Technology InfiniBand

[James]

So I'm guessing AMD will licence the tech to Dell and HP etc. Could be a decent move.

Apparently SeaMicro has about 40 engineers so I guess they'll be put to work in R&D. The rest might be about to lose their jobs unless AMD actually plans on keeping the sales side of things - they did mention an opteron later this year so maybe they do plan on keeping the system sales.

[realjjj]

some more info http://blogs.amd.com/work/2012/02/29...-all-together/

[James]

Article on wired -

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise...ires-seamicro/

[realjjj]

The Wired article is somewhat poor.Anyway,AMD is just staying in the game here and it's something they needed.Should also help in getting some traction in GPU sales.