NVidia and Microsoft Have Acquisition Pact

[Hwæt]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/06/03/2340207/Microsoft-and-Nvidia-Have-Acquisition-Pact

Microsoft sure seems keen in acquiring anything that has a Linux userbase...

[KiwiNZ]

I doubt the "Linux user base" enters Microsofts thoughts on this.

[Thewhistlingwind]

I doubt the "Linux user base" enters Microsofts thoughts on this.

Really, the Nvida support is okay at best. Theres a LOT of better reasons to get into hardware......

[Paqman]

I doubt the "Linux user base" enters Microsofts thoughts on this.

+1

Nvidia have much bigger fish to fry than Linux.

[forrestcupp]

I doubt the "Linux user base" enters Microsofts thoughts on this.

+1

NVIDIA's Linux user base is a very, very small part of what makes up NVIDIA. Just read what it says in that one paragraph you linked to. They're doing it because of the Xbox and Windows 8 tablets.

And it's not like they are buying NVIDIA like AMD did with ATI. They aren't going to take over and cut off all Linux support.

[Quadunit404]

and it's not like they are buying nvidia like amd did with ati. They aren't going to take over and cut off all linux support.

+1

[beew]

From what I am reading it is not that MS is going to acquire Nvidia. Rather a deal exists to prevent a MS competitor (most likely Apple) to do that in exchange for MS licensing for Xbox (but MS has gone back on that by licensing it to ATI in 2003 according to the source article) Moreover the deal is 10 years old, so really nothing new has happened.

Am I missing something?

As to the point that if MS were to acquire Nvidia it is not because of Linux, it may very well be true, but I can't see how that is supposed to be reassuring if this happens. It certainly wouldn't be because of trying to screw Linux for MS to acquire Nvidia (if it does), but why wouldn't they undermine Linux if it is convenient? And why would they spend money on continuing Linux support? I am sorry, I can't share the faith in the benevolence of big corporations, least of all a monopolistic predator like MS.

[Dr. C]

I doubt the "Linux user base" enters Microsofts thoughts on this.

I would not be so sure about this. While the combined Internet use market share for GNU / Linux and Android / Linux is in the 1% - 5% range depending on your source, and the Linux market share has grown over 10 fold in the last decade, the real battle between Windows and Linux will be in mobile and in particular in car systems powered by ARM processors. For the in car market consider GENIVI (http://www.genivi.org/). Its members include GM, BMW, Jaguar, Peugeot Citroen, Honda, Tata, and Renault among others, and also includes NVidia and our very own Canonical. Microsoft is also in the this market with Ford using Microsoft software for in car systems.

[Spice Weasel]

This is just one step further in Micro$oft's plan to dominate the world and force us all to use evil proprietary software. Can't you see!? This has nothing to do with Xbox or Windows 8, they are obviously doing this to inconvenience 1% of desktop users!

[BlouBlou]

Microsoft is only going to buy the 30% of NVidia, so MS won't decide about software/hardware decisions.

[beew]

Microsoft is only going to buy the 30% of NVidia, so MS won't decide about software/hardware decisions.

Where does it say that MS is going to buy anything?

It says that there is a deal between Nvidia and M$ so that if someone offers to buy 30% of Nvidia share MS would have the opportunity to preempt it by matching the offer. At that point MS can either pay the same amount to buy the share for itself, or decline and Nvidia would sell to the third party. So that means in case Nvidia is selling MS gets the priority to buy if the offer is the same among several potential buyers.

The deal is 10 years old.