Imagination, Designer of Apple's GPUs, Puts Itself up for Sale

[DocSwag]

16 minutes ago, Red Hardware said:

Exactly

That's what I think might happen!! BUT  apple might have their own GPU ready in 1~2 years and they might not even care about imagination technologies.

But the thing is Apple has a lot of iOS app development stuff based on powervr tech, so building their own gpu isn't gonna be easy. They're either gonna have to buy/pay royalties for patents or move all that stuff over to new technologies.

[Red Hardware]

9 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

But the thing is Apple has a lot of iOS app development stuff based on powervr tech, so building their own gpu isn't gonna be easy. They're either gonna have to buy/pay royalties for patents or move all that stuff over to new technologies.

So if Samsung buy them , then apple needs to pay for patents or move to new tech that is not going to be cheap and needs time to be optimized . SO it's a win win for samsung if apple's GPU is not ready or it's relying on power vr tech but in other case , they might not even care because they have their own GPU and software ready by the time so they won't need Power vr at all

[DocSwag]

3 minutes ago, Red Hardware said:

So if Samsung buy them , then apple needs to pay for patents or move to new tech that is not going to be cheap and needs time to be optimized . SO it's a win win for samsung if apple's GPU is not ready or it's relying on power vr tech but in other case , they might not even care because they have their own GPU and software ready by the time so they won't need Power vr at all

It'll require porting all the work app developers have put into using some of the resources powervr gives though, which won't be easy.

 

I'm honestly not so sure Samsung would be interested. Yes they make mobile socs but it's not a huge business for them as they mainly use them for non us variants of their flagships. They seem fine with Mali GPUs right now and haven't seemed to be interested in building anything from the ground up. All their CPUs and GPUs are either licensed from arm or customized versions of arm cores (exynos 8890 used slightly customized arm A72s I think), so it doesn't seem like they're interested in building stuff from scratch like Apple or Qualcomm.

[Ryujin2003]

3 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

Gimme $500 million and I'll buy them!

I'm waiting for the next meme:

 

"Hey Alexa. I have no idea what to do next. Can you get me an imagination?."

"Ok, buying Imagination Technologies Group"

[DocSwag]

1 minute ago, Ryujin2003 said:

I'm waiting for the next meme:

 

"Hey Alexa. I have no idea what to do next. Can you get me an imagination?."

"Ok, buying Imagination Technologies Group"

I can only imagine how badly that would turn out.

[Red Hardware]

15 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

It'll require porting all the work app developers have put into using some of the resources powervr gives though, which won't be easy.

 

I'm honestly not so sure Samsung would be interested. Yes they make mobile socs but it's not a huge business for them as they mainly use them for non us variants of their flagships. They seem fine with Mali GPUs right now and haven't seemed to be interested in building anything from the ground up. All their CPUs and GPUs are either licensed from arm or customized versions of arm cores (exynos 8890 used slightly customized arm A72s I think), so it doesn't seem like they're interested in building stuff from scratch like Apple or Qualcomm.

NO

There were a lot of rumors around this ,Even using AMD or Nvidia tech in their next exynos SOC , and for their CPUs , they have Mongoose . They even worked with Qualcomm for snapdragon 835 so they have the tech .

Their phones with Exynos are always faster in CPU performance compared to snapdragon ones, have better battery life , faster boot times and app loading and they produce less heat than the snapdragon ones but they are always slightly behind the snapdragon in GPU performance so it makes sense to buy imagination and use their high end tech to build a good GPU

 

[DocSwag]

6 minutes ago, Red Hardware said:

NO

There were a lot of rumors around this ,Even using AMD or Nvidia tech in their next exynos SOC , and for their CPUs , they have Mongoose . They even worked with Qualcomm for snapdragon 835 so they have the tech .

Their phones with Exynos are always faster in CPU performance compared to snapdragon ones, have better battery life , faster boot times and app loading and they produce less heat than the snapdragon ones but they are always slightly behind the snapdragon in GPU performance so it makes sense to buy imagination and use their high end tech to build a good GPU

 

-all rumors

-Mongoose is based on A72, like I said already

-what do you mean by worked with Qualcomm? If you mean to use for the S8, that's completely irrelevant

-that's mostly because Kryo, while good, wasn't as good as A72 when it came to efficiency

-while that's true, the difference isn't huge and the costs of developing their own gpu would probably outweigh the benefits

[Red Hardware]

15 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

-all rumors

-Mongoose is based on A72, like I said already

-what do you mean by worked with Qualcomm? If you mean to use for the S8, that's completely irrelevant

-that's mostly because Kryo, while good, wasn't as good as A72 when it came to efficiency

-while that's true, the difference isn't huge and the costs of developing their own gpu would probably outweigh the benefits

You are right about the costs of developing their own GPU. So if Samsung is not interested , I think some car manufacturers might be interested about it and want to use their tech in "self driving cars"

I don't see any other company that might be interested in buying them and I don't think shareholders easily accept to sell the company to apple after what happened 

we should wait and see

[DocSwag]

Just now, Red Hardware said:

You are right about the costs of developing their own GPU. So if the Samsung is not interested , I think some car manufacturers might be interested about it and want to use their tech in "self driving cars"

I don't see any other company that might be interested in buying them and I don't think shareholder easily accept to sell the company to apple after what happened 

we should wait and see

I doubt cad manufacturers as I think they're more likely to buy stuff from something like Nvidia.

 

There's a few I can think of that might be interested though.

 

There's mediatek, there's Huawei, potentially Google if they're actually interested in a custom SoC (which I doubt, though, as the costs would be a lot and it's a really high risk thing).

[Mira Yurizaki]

Even though Qualcomm has Adreno, I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to gobble up the IP. Or maybe ARM themselves.

 

Welp, I'm sure we'll be surprised either way.

[Belgarathian]

4 hours ago, huilun02 said:

News is already official that Apple will stop using Imagination's GPUs.

If they pull a 180 and gobble up Imagination, such an act is almost criminal and they would get sued big time by the state.

It would also be a pr disaster and destroy the trust of other companies who have business dealings with Apple.

Apple with its bottomless pocket would have no problem paying full price for majority control of the company anyway.

Frowned upon? Yes. Likely sued? Yes. Illegal? No. 

 

Nissan/Renault pulled the same move after they called out Mitsubishi on their different fuel consumption figures for a shared platform. Turns out they were reporting the figures in JAPAN ONLY based on a '90s reporting standard and hadn't updated the testing methodology. 

 

Next minute, Mitsubishi shares drop by around 40% and Nissan acquires 34% of Mitsubishi a week later. 

[suicidalfranco]

30 minutes ago, Sampsy said:

That would also probably get antitrust regulators all over them. It would be an enormous abuse of market power. 

meh, i bet they're more than ready to wste a few millions in court, fines and settlements if it means having patents in GPU tech in order to not get sued by the likes of Nvidia when they'll bring out their own GPU

[suicidalfranco]

Just now, Sampsy said:

 

If antitrust regulators think you're abusing your market position they can do a hell of a lot more than fine you a few million. If it comes to it they can break up a company - it has happened before. 

and we are talking about Apple, the company who didn't give a fuck when they got caught by the same antitrust regulators for fixing ebooks prices in their favour

[suicidalfranco]

Just now, Sampsy said:

Well the issue being discussed in this thread (which has not happened) would be a much more serious abuse. Apple would have used their market power to manipulate the stock price of one of their suppliers on the stock market to the detriment of the supplier's stockholders for personal financial gain.  

not much different from the ebook case, and they still manage to basically get out of it uninjured, ebook prices remained up regardless of the ruling, and in those 2 years they probably made more than the 450 million they paid, considering the 400 million to the consumers were simply store credits.

[DocSwag]

5 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Even though Qualcomm has Adreno, I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to gobble up the IP. Or maybe ARM themselves.

 

Welp, I'm sure we'll be surprised either way.

I don't think Qualcomm would but now that I think of it arm might be a likely candidate.

[mr moose]

If samsung weren't about to release their very own GPU solution, I would have almost bet money they would have made an offer.   

 

As for apple, they'd have to show some sort of proof they didn't engage in market manipulation to devalue stocks before they would be given the green light ot make such a purchase.  Either that or the system is corrupt and the rules don't apply to big American companies, only Asian ones.  

[Jito463]

22 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

If apple buys them now, that's some pure, dastardly, deviously, well play move right there

22 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

Sneaky Apple... 

 

I was just about post pretty much the same thing as @Red Hardware.  I think, if Apple tries to buy them, they should either demand a higher purchase price from them or sell to someone else.  Assuming buying them cheap is Apple's strategy (which I wouldn't discount, but is pure speculation at this point); while it would not be illegal, it would be highly unethical and more than a bit immoral.

[Doobeedoo]

Ow Apple knows exactly what it's doing..

[mr moose]

13 hours ago, Jito463 said:

while it would not be illegal,

I'm pretty sure any activity that causes a companies share price to drop comes under market manipulation, especially if it benefits said company.  Market manipulation is illegal and I think if apple make a bid then they would have to prove they didn't do it on purpose.

 

 

[Jito463]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I'm pretty sure any activity that causes a companies share price to drop comes under market manipulation, especially if it benefits said company.  Market manipulation is illegal and I think if apple make a bid then they would have to prove they didn't do it on purpose.

The thing is, intent is hard to define.  You can point to specific actions and assume or even infer intent, but actually proving it is a different story.  Without hard evidence (like an internal memo, for example), the fact that Apple never leaked the data that led to the stock prices falling means it would be extremely difficult to make a case for manipulation.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

The thing is, intent is hard to define.  You can point to specific actions and assume or even infer intent, but actually proving it is a different story.  Without hard evidence (like an internal memo, for example), the fact that Apple never leaked the data that led to the stock prices falling means it would be extremely difficult to make a case for manipulation.

In these cases the information is all their, it is simply upto the judge to decide or apple to prove otherwise.  That being said, the written definition is an act that inflates or deflates prices, dropping a whole bunch of orders that result in such a significant drop in share value is a pretty glaring act,  Just like you and many other have already said it would be unethical and a few eyebrows have been raised at the thought, So too will the relevant trading authorities on the matter.

[Ertman]

Apple buying them would be a class action lawsuit (shareholders) waiting to happen.

[Commodus]

On top of what others have said, it would be very, very risky to drop a hardware partner without having either another partner or (in Apple's case) internal development lined up.  Even if there were no legal issues... what if that partner calls your bluff?  You're suddenly scrambling to find an alternative.  Occam's Razor applies here.  Apple is just ditching Imagination because it believes it has better options, not because it's secretly trying to buy a company for a song.

 

The irony is that Apple often behaves the way it does precisely because it doesn't want to be in Imagination's place: becoming so dependent on another company's work that it's in serious danger if (or most likely when) that outside firm changes its mind.