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DrQuine
Of course a major company downplays the significance of a smaller competitor ...
resistion
Well, you know in this business, the best defense, besides offense, is not to be ...
Intel unimpressed with AMD's SeaMicro buy
Dylan McGrath
3/6/2012 7:06 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO—Intel Corp. declined the opportunity to acquire microserver startup SeaMicro Inc. prior to the announcement last week that Intel's chief competitor in the microprocessor market, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., would acquire SeaMicro for $334 million, according to Diane Bryant, Intel vice president and general manager of the company's Datacenter and Connected Systems Group.
Speaking at a press event to launch Intel's Xeon Processor E5-2600 Product Family here Tuesday (March 6), Bryant said Intel was approached by prior to the AMD deal by executives from SeaMicro, which thus far has brought to market only products with Intel's Atom and Xeon chips.
"We did look at SeaMicro's fabric," Bryant said. "There are probably very few people they didn't come to and shop their technology. We were not impressed. We declined. Very soon after our competitor acquired them.
Bryant said Intel intends to continue to participate strong in the microserver market. Other firms, including Dell, Supermicro, NEC, Hitachi and Tyan, offer microservers based on Intel processors. Bryant said Intel believes it will continue to be the leading processor supplier to microservers.
"We believe we have a very strong roadmap for microservers," Bryant said.
Diane Bryant, general manager of Intel's Datacenter and Connected Systems Group, speaking at a press conference in San Francisco Tuesday.
Speaking at a press event to launch Intel's Xeon Processor E5-2600 Product Family here Tuesday (March 6), Bryant said Intel was approached by prior to the AMD deal by executives from SeaMicro, which thus far has brought to market only products with Intel's Atom and Xeon chips.
"We did look at SeaMicro's fabric," Bryant said. "There are probably very few people they didn't come to and shop their technology. We were not impressed. We declined. Very soon after our competitor acquired them.
Bryant said Intel intends to continue to participate strong in the microserver market. Other firms, including Dell, Supermicro, NEC, Hitachi and Tyan, offer microservers based on Intel processors. Bryant said Intel believes it will continue to be the leading processor supplier to microservers.
"We believe we have a very strong roadmap for microservers," Bryant said.
Diane Bryant, general manager of Intel's Datacenter and Connected Systems Group, speaking at a press conference in San Francisco Tuesday.
Image courtesy of Intel Corp.
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resistion
3/6/2012 8:22 PM EST
When Intel doesn't stand by its champion(s), this is what happens.
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
3/6/2012 8:59 PM EST
Sounds like a reality show or soap opera. They should have hired Snooki to announce this.
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agk
3/7/2012 2:38 AM EST
why Intel to talk about this? They could have kept quite.
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KB3001
3/7/2012 10:05 AM EST
Sour grapes, Intel?
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dylan.mcgrath
3/7/2012 10:21 AM EST
AKB3001- Possibly. I would have been a lot more surprised if she had said something like, "Yes, SeaMicron has great technology and we are kicking ourselves for not thinking of acquiring that company."
Still, I thought this was a particularly strong worded comment about a competitor's acquisition.
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parity
3/7/2012 3:20 PM EST
KB +1 on that.
Sour grapes and likely a strong bit of not-invented-here (NIH) mentality from Intel's team. They have their own Xenon horse in the server race now - buying Seamicro might have been an acquisition disaster, ie, not enough room in the sandbox for two server chip design teams.
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parity
3/7/2012 3:23 PM EST
Or, taking a page from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, scene II
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
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mike655mm
3/7/2012 8:04 PM EST
The better Shakespeare line that applies to these comments is "Much ado about nothing"
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resistion
3/7/2012 9:16 PM EST
Well, you know in this business, the best defense, besides offense, is not to be defensive. That is why it is common for "no comments" to be a response. In this case, Intel could have spun it jokingly around to say "glad AMD has come around". Instead, it gave the message that even though you were once a supporter of Intel technology, Intel can turn its back on you, rather than help you develop.
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DrQuine
3/11/2012 6:33 PM EDT
Of course a major company downplays the significance of a smaller competitor buying a technology that they passed on. This isn't news, this is expected. News would be Intel expressing regrets that they didn't buy the technology when it was offered.
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