There have been rumors of Microsoft making plans to acquire AMD and all its assets. But what if it actually happened, how would it benefit the software giant going forward?
AMD is a company that has been around for quite some time. It is the main competitor to Intel, but for the past decade or more, AMD has failed to bring meaningful competition to the market, leaving Intel to do whatever it wants.
As for Microsoft, the company is first and foremost a software company and that is not going to change anytime soon. However, there is room for growth in other sectors, and grabbing at AMD could be a means for improvement.
Ever since the software giant entered the hardware market in a big way with the first Xbox, it was clear that things at Microsoft were going to be different in the years after.
Microsoft only managed to sell around 25 million units of the original Xbox, and that was enough to push the company to invest into the Xbox 360. It went on to hit over 80 million units sold, something many inside the industry did not expect.
Fast forward years later and Microsoft dug itself deeper into the hardware market with the Surface line of devices, the Xbox One, and its own mobile division due to the buyout of Nokia’s hardware division.
We also see the company playing around with an augmented reality device called, HoloLens. That’s another push into the hardware business right there, and we are confident more are coming down the line.
With all of that, it would make sense for Microsoft to create its own chips. Doing so would significantly cut down on costs, which could make for cheaper devices, or give Microsoft more spending room to innovate.
We must also look at the possible revenues from contracts. Chances are, Sony and Nintendo might want to create new consoles centered around the AMD design, and they would have to make deals with Microsoft for that to happen.
Unless Intel cut prices, we doubt any console manufacturer would work with that company, so AMD, for now, will always have the edge in this department.
One of the interesting aspects of any Microsoft buyout of AMD is that it would put the software giant in direct competition with Intel. Friends becoming enemies? Happens all the time in the tech world.
