Friday, September 20th 2024
Qualcomm Said to Have Approached Intel About Takeover Bid
This is not an April fool, as Qualcomm has apparently approached Intel with a takeover bid, according to the Wall Street Journal. The news follows earlier rumours about Qualcomm having eyed the opportunity to buy parts of Intel's client PC business, especially the parts related to chip design. Now it looks like Qualcomm has decided it might as well give it a go and take over Intel entirely, if the WSJ's sources can be trusted. It's still early days though and no official offers appear to have been proposed by Qualcomm so far and it doesn't appear to be a hostile takeover offer at this point in time. As such, this could turn out to be nothing, or we could see a huge change in the chip market if something comes of it.
It's worth keeping in mind that Intel's share price has dropped by around 57 percent so far this year—not taking into account today's small jump for Intel—and Qualcomm's market cap stands at over twice that of Intel's at 188 vs 93 billion US dollars. Even if Intel was to agree to a takeover offer from Qualcomm, there are several antitrust hurdles in multiple countries to get around for the two giants as well. This is despite the two not being direct competitors, but with Qualcomm recently having entered the Windows laptop market, the two are at least competing for some market share there. It's also unclear what Qualcomm would do with Intel's x86 legacy if it acquired Intel, as Qualcomm might not be interested in keeping it, at least not on the consumer side of its business. Time will tell if this is just some advanced speculation or a serious consideration by Qualcomm.
Sources:
The Wall Street Journal (paywall), Reuters
It's worth keeping in mind that Intel's share price has dropped by around 57 percent so far this year—not taking into account today's small jump for Intel—and Qualcomm's market cap stands at over twice that of Intel's at 188 vs 93 billion US dollars. Even if Intel was to agree to a takeover offer from Qualcomm, there are several antitrust hurdles in multiple countries to get around for the two giants as well. This is despite the two not being direct competitors, but with Qualcomm recently having entered the Windows laptop market, the two are at least competing for some market share there. It's also unclear what Qualcomm would do with Intel's x86 legacy if it acquired Intel, as Qualcomm might not be interested in keeping it, at least not on the consumer side of its business. Time will tell if this is just some advanced speculation or a serious consideration by Qualcomm.
102 Comments on Qualcomm Said to Have Approached Intel About Takeover Bid
That said, good luck getting this one through all the regulatory hoops. Hard to believe where Intel sits these days. They went from dominant and untouchable to possibly being bought up by someone bigger. And Qualcomm could just keep working patents and licenses on x86 and not even keep it going, but that would be really foolish. Their entrance into the Windows world is such a small blip in available marketshare, and obviously x86 is still a very important architecture for everyday life and business.
Does AMD have a perpetual license to the X 86 instruction set, similar to Apple’s perpetual non-revocable license to the ARM instruction set?
By now, x86 is largely obsolete in terms of the instruction sets that are being used by a modern computer and what's left could most likely quite easily be emulated by a modern CPU if needed.
If this is anything to go by, x86 kind of died with Windows 8.
phoenixnap.com/kb/x64-vs-x86
I'm surprised something like this didn't happen sooner but with Nvidia at the helm, unlike qualcomm they're really swimming in money and a takeover would be easy if they were able to pass the regulators part - probably why they didn't go for it after the failed attempt with ARM.
This is not the case. The fabs are completely worthless at the moment. If Intel would receive a symbolic $1 offer then Intel would be well advised to take it. $1 is better than more billions down the shitter with naught to show for it.
Sharks are drawn to blood in the water but Uncle Sam has a final say regarding Intel for what should be obvious reasons to everyone.
The US government needs someone inside the US to make their chips for the military etc.
What's still valuable are the extensions, SSE3 (which is to expire soon) and newer. This article tells more, even if it's rather old:
www.blopeur.com/2020/04/08/Intel-x86-patent-never-ending.htmlThat applies to the existing ARM instruction set. Sooner or later ARM will put ogether a new version, or rather a new extension for matrix math/security/whatever. I don't think Apple, Samsung, QC and others will just automatically get the license without paying again.That's how it seems right now, yes. Should any company buy the entire Intel, they would inherit the issue, and the issue is that you can't offer your fab services to your competition and hope they'd trust you.
And Intel IS STILL cleaning out their closet and paying back for all they did back in the day. I hope their journey ends on a good note. I don't want Intel gone and sure as hell don't want Qualcomm to get them..
Wait what?! That's it?!?!?!
Hasn't their net income been about $20bi per year for past 5 years!?!?
www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1522/intel-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2021-financial
Who Intel is owned by:
(Of course it doesn't end here. The list is very similar for AMD. Also Nvidia, except for a certain individual who owns ~3.8%)
The huge operation known to the public as "Qualcomm buys Intel" would actually boil down to "accountants at mutual funds update some records", more or less.