Microsoft in talks with AMD about acquisition

Lame PC sales and intensifying competition leave deep imprints on AMD’s finances, where no turnaround seems to be in sight until later next year when the company releases completely new generations of processors and graphics cards. Enthusiasts and not least analysts believe, however, that the company is in need of financial muscle to have a chance to get back on its feet.

2015 has therefore been marked by rumors of an AMD acquisition and the latest in a long list of alleged stakeholders is Microsoft. Fudzilla now reports that the company has moved from a shown interest to action and that talks between the two parties are being held about a possible deal.

Microsoft, which is increasingly working with hardware, should have several reasons for wanting to acquire AMD, where perhaps the most obvious is that the company is behind the system circuit for Xbox One. AMD is also one of two graphics makers on the market, which would enable Microsoft to create new solutions to promote future iterations of the DirectX application interface.

On the processor side, AMD is expected to launch the Zen architecture by the end of next year and with a focus on energy efficiency, it could form the basis for future generations of Surface. An acquisition would also give Microsoft a hardware division with an established brand in the server market.

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The report also says that AMD may sell only the graphics division, which was recently restructured to Radeon Technologies Group, and that the latter will license back the necessary technology for their APU circuits. What speaks against one is that it is the company’s relatively profitable division and that they would be left with the CPU part that has long been drawn with red numbers.

Even if there is no question of an acquisition of all or parts of the business, AMD must have turned elsewhere to strengthen its finances in the short term. The investment company Silver Lake, which among other things helped to privatize Dell, should be ready to buy a significant share of 20 percent of the company.