Rumours that ATI will acquire XGI

[egore]

Its official ATI buys XGI.

http://ir.ati.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=105421&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=827595&highlight=

 

[Geo]

Its official ATI buys XGI.

http://ir.ati.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=105421&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=827595&highlight=

Nice. Thankyouverymuch.

Two of the things we pointed at anyway:

With the acquisition ATI immediately increases its presence in Shanghai, China, considered to be the epicenter of China's burgeoning technology market. At the same time the company acquires the research and design expertise of an organization best known for its multimedia add-in boards for personal computers.

Anyone know what they paid?

 

[Arty]

Anyone know what they paid?

"350-400 ten thousand US dollars"

I couldnt figure it out here.

 

[Tahir2]

Well blow me down with a feather...

 

[Geo]

Hexus is reporting $8-12M, probably towards the lower. So call it $10m-ish.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4828

At that price it seems like a why not, to me.

 

[kemosabe]

Confirmed by an ATI official as "less than $10 million".

Considering the XGI rumours coinciding with ATI's stock getting hammered, I can't help but wonder whether the fear of a potentially larger/costlier acquisition made a major shareholder bail over the last few days.

 

[Geo]

Can't wait for that 133t Xabre tech in R800!

No, really, if they added a signficant percentage to the Linux and video driver teams, then it's all good. XGI's website estimated that 87% of their employees were R&D, with 83% holding Masters or better.

http://www.xgitech.com/about/about_hr_employee.asp

 

[neliz]

Re: Server Client

why would ati shove anything other than their 7500's in thinclients? they've done a mighty good job so far in HP Compaq hardware, going from Rage to Radeon, but surely there's no need for that in server hardware?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

This transaction brings ATI two important elements – presence in a country that is emerging as the next big technology market, and a team of engineers that are highly skilled in our key product areas.

It would seem to me that much of ATI's interest in XGI would be the same as nVidia's interest in ULI...not primarily the technology, but the local business presence and network....

...When you are becoming more and more of a global company like ATI, at some point in your growth you try to localize parts of your business. Particularly, you have local sales offices that network with prospective customers. It is very difficult to "grow" such an infrastructure when you are foreign to that market / culture.

...I'm sure there is significant value in the engineering team (as geo suggested) as well. But I doubt that the technology in and of itself was a major driver for the acquisition. (Assuming this is all true, of course!)

I win.

 

[Tahir2]

I think perhaps it was a move that said "anything you can do we can do better."

Except this was more akin to "anything you can do we can do with less money and not so well either."