| How AMD's acquisition of ATI may help Linux |
Jul. 24, 2006
AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is acquiring ATI Technologies, one of the top two graphics processor makers, for around $5.4 billion. AMD's aim is to grow its market share in the mobility and commercial markets, according to AMD CEO Hector Ruiz. What does this mean for Linux users?
The combined company will still make discrete ATI graphics processors.
Clearly, AMD will be trying to get more traction in the Windows desktop space. However, I have several thoughts on what the acquisition may mean for the non-Windows desktop world.
First, while Apple's Intel-powered Macs run Intel chips at their heart, they also tend to use ATI chips for their graphical faces. Could AMD make a run at the Mac space? I think they will, and that they should.
In case you didn't know, Apple and the Mac are back to being a desktop force. Intel-powered Macs, as well as iPods, boosted Apple's third-quarter net income to $472 million, and earnings per share of 54 cents on revenue of $4.37 billion. In case, you haven't been tracking Apple's business, that makes its revenue up 48 percent from a year ago -- and, it was Apple's second-best quarterly results ever.
That's only part of the future, though. Historically, AMD, like Intel, has been very open-source and Linux friendly. ATI... well, ATI had not.
Recently, however, as the RedPhoronix blog, has chronicled, ATI had changed its Linux ways. While ATI's Linux drivers still aren't speed-demons, they're much better than they used to be, and ATI is now constantly improving them on a monthly driver release schedule.
With AMD at the helm, I can envision ATI finally open-sourcing the code to its proprietary drivers. That should quickly result in much better performance for Linux users, and better performance for the Windows and Mac platforms as well.
At the same time, the other giant of graphics, NVIDA, would be forced by AMD/ATI's move to improve its drivers. The only quick, good way to do that would be to bite the bullet and open-source its drivers, as well.
Now, I could be wrong. But, the longer I ponder what AMD wants to do with ATI, the more I think it makes perfect business sense for AMD to target both the Mac and Linux markets. I'm sure that they're also hoping to win more desktop Windows users, as well, but they could make a lot bigger splash a lot faster with the Mac and Linux desktops.
It will be interesting to see where this goes, but I'm really hoping that in the end it will mean much better graphic drivers from everyone for Linux.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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