Nvidia buys ULI
- Thread starter chavvdarrr
- Start date
Well, yes. I looked at year high, trend, and market cap when making my estimation. What I meant by 'out and about' to as was that if you knew whether there was a clear controlling majority (or group of) stockholder(s) that could be called up and made an offer to be recommended by the board. The more stock you have to gamble for in an open takeover bid - the higher the price tend to be. Failure in such an endevour is not really an option as that would undoubtedly hurt the NVIDIA stock as well.Uttar said:
FrameBuffer
Banned
Ouch .. I don't know but as a whole I feel that this is a bad thing for us, the end-users/consumers. Sure ALi/ULi was relatively small however they catered to a profitable install base including such niche markets as AGP + PCIe , S754+S939 and many of their latest boards included an M2 upgrade slot (for upcoming AMD M2 940pin cpu). In fact ULi has done much for those looking for alternatives. Their latest chipsets although usually priced in the lower tier perform as well as the best ATI/NV/Intel have to offer.
I feel as though this aquisition will hurt us (the consumers) as far as future choices go. ULi products have been quite innovative with rather decent performance and stability is for the most part unquestionable. nV's action imo will stagnate the competition in the chipset market as they will (in the future) no longer have to compete with the likes of ULi. I akin this action like that of nV's destruction of 3Dfx and their part in the demise of Aureal. Sure nv was able to make products based on their aquired IP and personel but as a whole the market lost valuable players that offered alternatives to the other goliaths. Just take a look at the market for sound cards,.. almost all aftermarket/DIY/add ins all fall into the lap of Creative Labs. The 3D market today is a perfect example of what a lack of true competition does,.. outrageous prices (although technologically, products are maturing) less innovation brought by less competition. The only real difference, unlike Aureal and 3Dfx, ULi isn't in the red.
as far as this goes:
"NVIDIA intends to supply ULi customers with current products for the foreseeable future."
I think the key word there is CURRENT . seeing as most likely ULi (nv) still has to fulfil their promised products under contractual basis. I'm willing to bet that any such future products that were in the "pipeline" are going to become just vaporware. I'll be the 1st to admit that typically my needs have led me to buy ATI products (AIW, ViVo etc) and I admittedly display a bias for ATi products feel that even if ATI had aquired ULi that all my previous reasons would remain valid. Tis a sorrowful day for Joe consumer if ya ask me.
Im willing to bet we'll never see the likes of ULi's SLI/Xfire/<insert name> multi graphics card implementations as any such beast would cut into nV's potential sales and give ATi's xfire a wider install base (if enabled by ATi in drivers i suppose).
I feel as though this aquisition will hurt us (the consumers) as far as future choices go. ULi products have been quite innovative with rather decent performance and stability is for the most part unquestionable. nV's action imo will stagnate the competition in the chipset market as they will (in the future) no longer have to compete with the likes of ULi. I akin this action like that of nV's destruction of 3Dfx and their part in the demise of Aureal. Sure nv was able to make products based on their aquired IP and personel but as a whole the market lost valuable players that offered alternatives to the other goliaths. Just take a look at the market for sound cards,.. almost all aftermarket/DIY/add ins all fall into the lap of Creative Labs. The 3D market today is a perfect example of what a lack of true competition does,.. outrageous prices (although technologically, products are maturing) less innovation brought by less competition. The only real difference, unlike Aureal and 3Dfx, ULi isn't in the red.
as far as this goes:
"NVIDIA intends to supply ULi customers with current products for the foreseeable future."
I think the key word there is CURRENT . seeing as most likely ULi (nv) still has to fulfil their promised products under contractual basis. I'm willing to bet that any such future products that were in the "pipeline" are going to become just vaporware. I'll be the 1st to admit that typically my needs have led me to buy ATI products (AIW, ViVo etc) and I admittedly display a bias for ATi products feel that even if ATI had aquired ULi that all my previous reasons would remain valid. Tis a sorrowful day for Joe consumer if ya ask me.
Im willing to bet we'll never see the likes of ULi's SLI/Xfire/<insert name> multi graphics card implementations as any such beast would cut into nV's potential sales and give ATi's xfire a wider install base (if enabled by ATi in drivers i suppose).
Josh at www.penstarsys.com has flogged a little more complete and interesting statement from Chris Evenden at ATI on the situation. Top of the front page.
Yeah, some of the initial coverage was suggesting this announcement came as a bombshell to ATI, but even if they weren't a bidder and/or directly aware of the upcoming change of ownership, word would have likely leaked out in some form to ATI, especially since the buyout has probably been ongoing for some time.
I wonder if any RD580 motherboards will use the ULi M1573 or the ULi M1575 South Bridges as suggested by AT last month or if there will be pressure to stick with SB450/460 and then SB600?
I wonder if any RD580 motherboards will use the ULi M1573 or the ULi M1575 South Bridges as suggested by AT last month or if there will be pressure to stick with SB450/460 and then SB600?
just a thought, although I'm none too knowlegeable on the chipset buisiness,
I wonder how well Uli does when it comes to intel chipsets? As far as I know nforce for intel pretty much bombed, right? It's not exactly a small market after all...
[Edit]
never mind, the Hexus article pretty much states this anyway
I wonder how well Uli does when it comes to intel chipsets? As far as I know nforce for intel pretty much bombed, right? It's not exactly a small market after all...
[Edit]
never mind, the Hexus article pretty much states this anyway
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chavvdarrr
Veteran
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28368
OEM i guess... in retail its hard to spot more than 1-2 Ati based motherboards...
Those numbers feel either bogus, or misinterpreted to me. Either that or there's a lot more to it than that. Could someone explain me how NVIDIA got this in their last quarter report if it was true? This financial quarter ended on the 30th of October 2005.
The only explanation you could find if those numbers are accurate is NVIDIA shipped a downright stupid amount of chipsets in the "late Q3" timeframe for them. Indeed, Mercury Research's Q3 ends about 1-1.5 months earlier than NVIDIA's, since NVIDIA's quarters are offset by about that amount of time (they don't work on the same calendar, fundamentally speaking).
If that was the case, we'd see a HUGE surge in Q4 numbers for the Mercury Report, probably above 4M units. It's not entirely impossible: ATI's chipset is still relatively new so they've got first-time deliveries to do, to OEMs who never made PCs with the chipset before, replacing other low-end chipsets, of which nForces are only a minority. On the other hand, NVIDIA has well established contracts, and these products have been selling for more than a year now I think - so it'd be only logical to only get revenue from partners who sold out and need new inventory. As such, the late September/early October timeframe is more appropriate for such a thing, which isn't included in the Q3 report.
Then there's also the possibility NVIDIA indeed fucked up bigtime and lost 80% of its MCP sales, and is lieing in its quarterly financial report. Or their Intel business could have skyrocketed. Or that might not be including integrated chipsets which might have seen a surge. Or...
But overall, I'd be very surprised if those numbers were correct AND properly interpreted by The Inq.
Uttar
You don't achieve record revenue in a division by losing 80% of your sales. Even if those only are OEM sales, the retail market isn't big enough to offset such a thing.
The only explanation you could find if those numbers are accurate is NVIDIA shipped a downright stupid amount of chipsets in the "late Q3" timeframe for them. Indeed, Mercury Research's Q3 ends about 1-1.5 months earlier than NVIDIA's, since NVIDIA's quarters are offset by about that amount of time (they don't work on the same calendar, fundamentally speaking).
If that was the case, we'd see a HUGE surge in Q4 numbers for the Mercury Report, probably above 4M units. It's not entirely impossible: ATI's chipset is still relatively new so they've got first-time deliveries to do, to OEMs who never made PCs with the chipset before, replacing other low-end chipsets, of which nForces are only a minority. On the other hand, NVIDIA has well established contracts, and these products have been selling for more than a year now I think - so it'd be only logical to only get revenue from partners who sold out and need new inventory. As such, the late September/early October timeframe is more appropriate for such a thing, which isn't included in the Q3 report.
Then there's also the possibility NVIDIA indeed fucked up bigtime and lost 80% of its MCP sales, and is lieing in its quarterly financial report. Or their Intel business could have skyrocketed. Or that might not be including integrated chipsets which might have seen a surge. Or...
But overall, I'd be very surprised if those numbers were correct AND properly interpreted by The Inq.
Uttar
It's the 3 letter acronym thing, they stick together.Jawed said:
Well, it's well known ATI's chipset margins suck. Considering the OEM wins, I guess their strategy is lowering margins to sell cheaper. Guess the OEMs are impressed with partners ready to have such low margins just to gain marketshare, while NVIDIA cares more about margins than anything lately, so that keeps them out of the market. I'd really be interested by Dollar Value marketshare numbers, rather than "Unit Shipped" numbers.
(but then again, perhaps there are other reasons I'm unaware of wrt ATI's chipset success, and in fact there most likely are)).
Uttar
(but then again, perhaps there are other reasons I'm unaware of wrt ATI's chipset success, and in fact there most likely are)).
Uttar
The x-bit one included intel chipsets where ATI got an enormous boost due to intel not providing enough chipsets, so it doesn't mean too much. I find the inquirer numbers questionable myself, but one would assume that they actually checked before posting...
All you have to do is look at Intel tanking and ATI rising at the same rate.
I think there are also a lot of weird dynamics going on. The new socket that is supposedly coming out, and as was previously noted OEM contracts do bring in lots of revenue (even if at low margins), but not as much in the way of mindshare.
Jawed, I think ATI was simply cheaper than nvidia. Nvidia was always might proud of their chipsets by the pricetag they set. Perhaps they have learned their lesson and the ULi aquisition signals they will change their ways...
All you have to do is look at Intel tanking and ATI rising at the same rate.
I think there are also a lot of weird dynamics going on. The new socket that is supposedly coming out, and as was previously noted OEM contracts do bring in lots of revenue (even if at low margins), but not as much in the way of mindshare.
Jawed, I think ATI was simply cheaper than nvidia. Nvidia was always might proud of their chipsets by the pricetag they set. Perhaps they have learned their lesson and the ULi aquisition signals they will change their ways...
I'm kind of freaking at the ATi numbers too, I still don't really consider them as "players" yet in the mobo market....but I'm usually a bit behind the times. (He says lovingly patting his AGP rig)Uttar said:
What's this about ATi's chipset margins? It isn't well known by me and I'd really appreciate it if you could bring me up to speed real quick.
Y'know, I put my green hat on, and I can hear Jen saying something like "We're after the plums; let ATI have the raisins." (and if NV PR is reading, I give you leave to use that one. )
Example. Over Thanksgiving I bought my mother a new computer (kept her 19" monitor that my brother gave her). Whole machine --and by no means an "enthusiast" machine, but quite respectable-- was less than $500. It had RX200 chipset/graphics.
I just ordered myself a new mobo with NF4-SLI on it. It cost nearly $200. Right now, what kind of multiplier does NV have profit-wise per chipset compared to ATI? 2x? 3x? 4x? That might help explain some of the tension in the different ways you look at the numbers.
Edit: A related thot --Jen has been crowing about blowing past 40% margins on his way to 45%. Well, how do you do that? One of the ways is to significantly cut your volume in the low-margin parts of the business --voluntarily and/or involuntarily. In other words, it never occurred to me to think of that as positive spin for "we're losing a lot of business to ATI", but in fact it could be (at least in part --this is not an NV bash; their results are unquestionable of late).
)Example. Over Thanksgiving I bought my mother a new computer (kept her 19" monitor that my brother gave her). Whole machine --and by no means an "enthusiast" machine, but quite respectable-- was less than $500. It had RX200 chipset/graphics.
I just ordered myself a new mobo with NF4-SLI on it. It cost nearly $200. Right now, what kind of multiplier does NV have profit-wise per chipset compared to ATI? 2x? 3x? 4x? That might help explain some of the tension in the different ways you look at the numbers.
Edit: A related thot --Jen has been crowing about blowing past 40% margins on his way to 45%. Well, how do you do that? One of the ways is to significantly cut your volume in the low-margin parts of the business --voluntarily and/or involuntarily. In other words, it never occurred to me to think of that as positive spin for "we're losing a lot of business to ATI", but in fact it could be (at least in part --this is not an NV bash; their results are unquestionable of late).
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