[Console Edition] Satya Nadella: "We are going to make some difficult decisions"

That would be an immediate antitrust investigation.

 

So, everything with MS is an immediate anti-trust investigation. It doesn't mean they pack up and go home.

 

???

 

By what metric do you think Apple are a bigger software company? Whatever it is, you're way off base. Apple's CPU business is a fraction of other ARM licensees like Qualcomm.

I don't know what definition of dominant you are using but under the legislation that defines a monopoly market, Microsoft continue to have a desktop monopoly.

An OS monopoly market holder which significant interests in a significant CPU and GPU hardware in a market where there are only two runners in each field is what anti-monopoly legislation is there to prevent.

 

I'm pretty sure Microsoft could buy them no problem, at least with regards to regulators. It wouldn't create any new monopoly. I see no problem. I don't know about the X86 license thing though.

 

Seriously? The desktop CPU market has two key players: AMD and Intel. The desktop GPU market has two key players: AMD and Nvidia. Microsoft own the desktop operating system with the highest market share by a massive margin. Under EU, Chinese and U.S. Regulation they have a defacto monopoly and gives Microsoft hardware teams a huge advantage over the competition.

It boggles me when we have these monopoly discussions and people say they don't see a problem with giving a monopoly holder a significant chunk of thin competitive markets. It's like people don't understand what a monopoly is, or recall how Microsoft has been found guilty of abusing this trust position in the past.

If Microsoft had a desktop OS market share of Apple it would be far less an issue but they own fucking Windows and Office!

 

Monopolies are a problem when they used illegally to upset another market.

So, the concern would not be 'creating a new monopoly' but exploiting an existing monopoly.
For example:
- maybe a hidden Windows API that AMD are given access to, but not NVIDIA.
- maybe AMD are present whilst MS design DX13, and explain how to design it so that they perform better than NVIDIA.
- maybe windows has a flag for AMD that boosts performance.

Crazy, conspiracy theory stuff... aka 'stuff MS was caught doing'.

I think there's a bunch of other (competition) concerns due to the relationship between MS and Intel.

 

What makes you think a MS-owned AMD would not trade with Sony and Nintendo?

They would make good dollar from selling console APU's while being able to significantly undercut the competition on cost when using the same/similar components for their own consoles. Win/win, IMO.

MS has never refused to sell Sony Windows licences after all.

 

The desktop CPU market has one player Intel and AMD's tiny presence is there only because Intel allows them to exist. A buy-out of AMD from a powerful backer would make that market healtier not vice versa. And AMD is getting eaten in GPUs too.

I don't know if there is any truth to these rumours, but I don't think MS's interest would be to challenge Intel anyway, but get cheaper parts to their hardware, Surfaces, Xboxes and so on.

The world has changed since the old days when Windows was the only thing that mattered. There are other major OS's now, even if they are in the mobile realm, huge mega corporations like Apple and Samsung that have vast chip building expertise. In this world MS buying the current AMD is nothing special imo.

 

By your definition there is no choice for consumer or server CPUs but this is evidently nonsense because there is a choice. And it's choice that actually matters when it comes to free markets and monopolies.

I don't believe the rumours either.

Sure, that's your opinion. However your opinion, my opinion and anybody else's opinion is just that and is irrelevant to what free market legislation actually states. And it states that Microsoft has a monopoly. End of. Microsoft can't buy shit without approval any more. Their acquisition of Nokia took an age and was approved because Nokia are largely irrelevant in the modern mobile space which is so crowded one less player made no difference to consumer choice. They had to get approval to buy Skype but again, the determination was that there are so many consumer options for VOIP that wrapping Skype into MSN and Messenger really wasn't a big deal in terms of choice.

But Microsoft owning AMD?

If Microsoft intended to buy AMD with the intention of exclusively using their tech in it's own products then this move deprives the market of what little choice already exists and would denied by default. The only circumstance where I could see Microsoft being allowed to buy AMD is under a similar stipulation to Google being allowed to buy Motorola, where the two companies were firewall to prevent anti-competitive behaviour and Google dumped that mother less than a year after acquisition. But I don't see how this would make AMD more successful, or what would be in it for Microsoft over the status quo now.

What AMD dearly need is a competitive edge; the kind of competitive edge that could be gained by being owned by Microsoft and having their CPU and GPU designs steered to work better under Windows than the competition except this would be anti-competitive. Whatever the solution to AMD's financials woes is, it's definitely not Microsoft.

 

This. And I agree. Yet...

Microsoft, can avoid anti-trust issues by exiting AMD, out of the PC/Server market (sounds crazy). And use it's newly acquired facilities and technology for strictly Microsoft related products (Xbox One successor, Surface products, VR/AR related projects, Nokia related R&D, etc...). As long as MS avoids leveraging AMD CPUs/GPUs in an off-the-shelf manner towards Intel/Nvidia markets... but rather their own internal products... MS can make the case that it is strictly purchasing AMD as a new R&D division on improving their current product lines, and also having the capability (AMD manufacturing facilities) on reducing those associated cost across their product lines.

 

This would fail a fundamental EU principle of not approving mergers or aquisitions that will harm competition:

The objective of examining proposed mergers is to prevent harmful effects on competition.​

 

If Intel isn't standing in the way (threat over litigation revolving around x86 license) of MS buying AMD, then I doubt any regulator would ultimately stand in the way. Not saying there wouldn't be any caveats required by regulators like restrictions on any attempts to shut off Linux or any OS from AMD hardware. But the buying of AMD in and of itself by MS doesn't naturally lead to a reduction in competition.

 

I can only assume the heat is preventing people being able to read and comprehend what is a very basic principle of free markets. That is preserving said free market.

It's quite simple and I'm sure at least some of you would be up to the task of understanding it if you bothered to read it rather that writing down what random thought bounce into your heads when thinking about it

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/overview_en.html

 

Does AMD really have any value though? I mean Blockbuster was also probably cheap but why bother if they don't have a useful product. AMD hardware is basically crap on desktop and just about non existent on mobile/portable. It exists in the console space not because it was any good, but more because it was dirt cheap and because mobile cpu's weren't quite there yet at the time. I mean why bother buying them just to get a mediocre product? Yeah Microsoft could cut their costs if they owned the entire chain, but would they really be in a better position owning a company that doesn't make competitive products? They'd save money and then end up with hardware that is beat by everything else, or hardware that isn't even usable in the mobile space.

 

Hey Bro, we're just playing Devil's Advocate... and we may be looking at it from more of Americans point of view "where these things happen regardless of regulation". So no harm, no foul...

Heck, AMD purchased ATI, and many thought it wouldn't happen because of regulation. But here we are now... once again.

 

I really don't see why Microsoft would want to buy them. I don't see a win. Sure, they can give themselves internal pricing, but the cost of running that business is huge and they take on all of the losses.

 

My disappointment comes from the promise to the delivery.

- Cloud gaming hasn't shown much of anything that's a game changer
- Kinect. Once Kinect-less SKU's were introduced, I knew where that was headed
- The UI was in many way a step backwards. They have been doing a good job of adding features or revision functions based on feedback
- It's pretty unacceptable to me how long it took for apps to be XB1 ready. I don't care if it's the app manufacturers fault. MS needed to have that continuity in place. Smartphones made that an expectation

Ultimately, once you take off the bits promised, you're just left with a weak console compared to even the generation bump before it. Clearly what made the 360 successful was something that didn't register properly with the higher ups. Thus you see Don Mattrick and a few others no longer there. They could have walked into this generation comfortably. Instead they fumbled it and are likely looking at platform viability for the long run.

I've always had a pretty powerful PC but that didn't stop me from putting the hours in the 360 or making it my primary gaming device. The XB1 is "fine" but for me, it'll always be a misstep to what was an all around fantastic device.

 

Did we already add in this ""

 

When did this become an Apple/Samsung marketshare/sales/profit thread?