PDA

View Full Version : Oracle thinking to snatch up chipmakers...



Lucradia
September 25th, 2010, 01:57 PM
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20017533-92.html

Great, all we need is this. :(

Note, it doesn't say they want to get after Intel, even though Intel is losing market share to AMD at times, a lot more than it's used to.

quinnten83
September 25th, 2010, 02:34 PM
I thought Intel was now the dominant chipmaker.
I believe that they are whooping AMD's gluteus maximus.

Dustin2128
September 25th, 2010, 02:38 PM
I thought Intel was now the dominant chipmaker.
I believe that they are whooping AMD's gluteus maximus.
no, amd is coming back by leaps and bounds. They make (IMO) a superior product for a lower price.

Anyway, this quote from the article disturbed me a bit.


Our focus is to build our (intellectual property) portfolio...You could see us buying chip companies,



tinfoil hat: on.

the last thing we need at this point is software companies buying chip companies.

quinnten83
September 25th, 2010, 02:45 PM
no, amd is coming back by leaps and bounds. They make (IMO) a superior product for a lower price.

Anyway, this quote from the article disturbed me a bit.

tinfoil hat: on.

the last thing we need at this point is software companies buying chip companies.

Especially oracle. since they have proven to be almost hostile against the opensource community.

Dustin2128
September 25th, 2010, 02:53 PM
Especially oracle. since they have proven to be extremely hostile against the opensource community.
FTFY :)

I totally agree. We can all hope that microsoft doesn't hop on the bandwagon, I'd hate to have to jailbreak my CPU...

Dustin2128
September 25th, 2010, 03:01 PM
spam, on ubuntu forums? That's an odd choice.

Sporkman
September 25th, 2010, 03:53 PM
especially oracle. Since they have proven to be almost hostile against the opensource community.

btrfs.

Khakilang
September 26th, 2010, 06:47 AM
Don't forget they have Sparc server and workstation which is good enough reason to buy chips maker company. Than we will have Mac from Apple, Windows for PC from Microsoft and Orc computer from Oracle. Maybe Ubuntu should follow suit and call Nux computer.

inobe
September 26th, 2010, 07:03 AM
nice

Lucradia
September 26th, 2010, 07:40 AM
Don't forget they have Sparc server and workstation which is good enough reason to buy chips maker company. Than we will have Mac from Apple, Windows for PC from Microsoft and Orc computer from Oracle. Maybe Ubuntu should follow suit and call Nux computer.

Microsoft and Apple don't own chipmakers though; and both are purely software companies. (Yes, even the 360 is made from different companies, just MS oversees the making, sort of.)

Apple's chips were never made by apple... and were originally made by Motorola.

SONY is also going the same way as Microsoft with its gaming consoles. SONY did make its own processor, but is now going to rely on Intel for it's next PlayStation. (Still nvidia for graphics I'm sure.)

Chame_Wizard
September 26th, 2010, 10:50 AM
They better don't touch AMD or any ARM companies.

Paqman
September 26th, 2010, 11:21 AM
no, amd is coming back by leaps and bounds. They make (IMO) a superior product for a lower price.


Source?

koenn
September 26th, 2010, 11:44 AM
Microsoft and Apple don't own chipmakers though; and both are purely software companies.

Apple is hardware company : http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=107357&p=irol-faq#corpinfo2
and :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10442684-64.html

Paqman
September 26th, 2010, 12:22 PM
Apple is hardware company : http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=107357&p=irol-faq#corpinfo2
and :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10442684-64.html

It's worth point out that as well as the Ipad's chip being an ARM one, Apple actually own part of ARM. Which ironically means they must be making money from the sale of Android handsets.

Lucradia
September 26th, 2010, 03:45 PM
Apple is hardware company : http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=107357&p=irol-faq#corpinfo2
and :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10442684-64.html

1st Link:

Q: What is Apple's mission statement?
A: Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Doesn't say anything about making chipsets or chips. Designing =/= Making.

2nd Link:

In Apple's own words, it's "custom silicon that we designed for this product." Apple acquired chip designer PA Semi in 2008.

:|

Sporkman
September 26th, 2010, 03:50 PM
Doesn't say anything about making chipsets or chips. Designing =/= Making.


Then there are very few actual chip "makers" - most chip companies contract out their manufacturing to large foundries.

MooPi
September 26th, 2010, 04:04 PM
Most likely Oracle is looking at one of the licensed ARM chip makers. From recent articles I get the feeling that they want to move into the mobile arena with their mobile java. If the rumors are correct ?

Dustin2128
September 26th, 2010, 04:20 PM
Source?
notice the IMO? (in my opinion)

anyway, source 1 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115067&cm_re=intel_quad_core-_-19-115-067-_-Product) and 2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808&cm_re=amd_quad_core-_-19-103-808-_-Product). AMD's might have a smaller L3, but it's got a 400Mhz higher clock and is 60$ cheaper.

koenn
September 26th, 2010, 06:36 PM
1st Link:
Doesn't say anything about making chipsets or chips. Designing =/= Making.


2nd Link:
"In Apple's own words, it's "custom silicon that we designed for this product." Apple acquired chip designer PA Semi in 2008. "

:|

Computers, phones, any other device, ... counts as "hardware", at least where I live. That would make Apple, by their own mission statement, a hardware company.

Designing =/= Making ? Maybe you misunderstand, "design" means more than choosing the colors and or deciding on what shape the case should have, it's actually working out all technical details of a machine. The actual soldering and screwing it together is grunt work, mostly done by robots (or an automated bulk production process in the case of miniature electronics such as chips), but the "creation" is in the design.


And if Apple owns the chip company, I'd the chips that come out of it are theirs. So even if you limit hardware to chips only, they're a hardware company.

bash
September 26th, 2010, 06:58 PM
Especially oracle. since they have proven to be extremely hostile against the opensource community.

FTFY :)

Oh really? Think of the Oracle v. Google suit all you want, but stating that Oracle is extremely hostile against Open-Source is just plain wrong to say the least, if not just ignorant.

People on this board often state how bad and despicable they find the mud-slinging and FUD spreading campaigns that for example Microsoft has employed in the past, yet if it concerns a topic of their interest, it seems to become fair game to spread such misinformed fallacies themselves.

Oracle is a major contributor to Open-Source and to Linux in specific. They are even nice enough to maintain easy to understand websites giving a quick and comprehensive overview over all the different Open-Source efforts Oracle runs. Have a look over here for the different parts Oracle contributed to Linux: http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/linux/026042.htm . They even host a dedicated page for all their open-source efforts: http://oss.oracle.com/projects/ . Further they also contribute to other major projects surrounding Linux. For the latest Xserver for example Oracle was the #1 contributor (going by employer) [1].

As in most cases with large corporations involved with Open-Source they do some things that are good, some that are bad, but most of all they use it as a means to an end (hint money). In this they are no different than Red Hat, Google and all the others.


[1] http://vignatti.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/x-census-for-1-9/

Dr Belka
September 26th, 2010, 08:42 PM
FTFY :)

I totally agree. We can all hope that microsoft doesn't hop on the bandwagon, I'd hate to have to jailbreak my CPU...

too late...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369468,00.asp

KiwiNZ
September 26th, 2010, 08:45 PM
Oracle sponsorship of FSF :wink:

http://www.fsf.org/patrons

Dustin2128
September 26th, 2010, 09:16 PM
too late...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369468,00.asp

yeah but

..which will be available only from Best Buy...
so none of us will care :)
besides, somebody will create a free override if they give you extra cores that aren't actually crippled or defective (as is the norm, they just have processors with defective cores shunted down from, say, quad to dual core)

Dr Belka
September 27th, 2010, 01:58 AM
besides, somebody will create a free override if they give you extra cores that aren't actually crippled or defective

jailbreaking the cpu... exactly...

Khakilang
September 27th, 2010, 09:47 AM
Oracle sponsorship of FSF :wink:

http://www.fsf.org/patrons

And now they become this.

http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/linux/index.html

:guitar:

Johnsie
September 27th, 2010, 11:11 AM
Give Oracle a break, they are actually helping open source by keeping things like java and mysql alive and pumping tonnes of money into free software. On the other hand people are nice to Google even though Google is the biggest data collection agent next to facebook.

ubunterooster
September 27th, 2010, 02:30 PM
the last thing we need at this point is software companies buying chip companies.Depends, intel and nvidia are deeply software involved. What about google? It is selling its own phone and that is surely hardware. And Apple?

Dustin2128
September 27th, 2010, 10:28 PM
jailbreaking the cpu... exactly...
Actually what I was trying to say is that if the majority of computer users were using hardware made by MS, they might someday have to jailbreak to install linux or BSD.

Lucradia
September 28th, 2010, 03:59 AM
I don't think AMD will be bought out without a divine fight of some kind.

intel acquired McAfee by the way, and Intel mobos may have hardware security in the future (mainly to lock down your PC if there's an incurable virus)

amitabhishek
September 28th, 2010, 06:48 AM
I am not surprised. Jobs and Ellison hang around together and they are golf buddies.

NCLI
September 28th, 2010, 07:27 AM
notice the IMO? (in my opinion)

anyway, source 1 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115067&cm_re=intel_quad_core-_-19-115-067-_-Product) and 2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808&cm_re=amd_quad_core-_-19-103-808-_-Product). AMD's might have a smaller L3, but it's got a 400Mhz higher clock and is 60$ cheaper.
Opinions are useless when it comes to comparing performance. Last time I checked out the latest benchmarks, Intel had the best chips, while AMD had the most bang per buck. It wasn't that long ago, so I doubt there has been any major change there.

Depends, intel and nvidia are deeply software involved. What about google? It is selling its own phone and that is surely hardware. And Apple?
Google didn't design the Nexus One hardware, they just commissioned it from HTC.

EnGorDiaz
September 28th, 2010, 08:34 AM
no, amd is coming back by leaps and bounds. They make (IMO) a superior product for a lower price.

Anyway, this quote from the article disturbed me a bit.

tinfoil hat: on.

the last thing we need at this point is software companies buying chip companies.

ummm you say there coming back by leaps and bounds when the new intel i5's perform better than there 6cores...

cascade9
September 28th, 2010, 08:46 AM
Opinions are useless when it comes to comparing performance. Last time I checked out the latest benchmarks, Intel had the best chips, while AMD had the most bang per buck. It wasn't that long ago, so I doubt there has been any major change there.

'Best'? Intel does make the fastest chips now, but fastest =/= best.

BTW, even when AMD did have the fastest chips, they still were better on 'bang for buck'.


ummm you say there coming back by leaps and bounds when the new intel i5's perform better than there 6cores...

On single-threaded applications, yeah, the i5s can be faster. Multi-threading is totally different, the 4core i5s are slower on quite a few tests. (particularly video encoding and transcoding)

mips
September 28th, 2010, 03:40 PM
Oracle sponsorship of FSF :wink:

http://www.fsf.org/patrons

http://www.fsf.org/patrons

Patron organizations affiliate themselves with the FSF and the GNU project through financial support. The FSF does not endorse the activities of its patrons.

So they would accept money from the devil as well :D