AMD would give Apple good quality fab at good prices. IBM would rape them. Can you say $4,500 for the top o' the line PMac? Apple cannot afford to pay IBM's premium in this market.
<strong>AMD would give Apple good quality fab at good prices. IBM would rape them. Can you say $4,500 for the top o' the line PMac? Apple cannot afford to pay IBM's premium in this market.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I suppose, but there's a heap of companies that could do the same, and AMD
is running at capacity, despite the depressed PC market (although they'd
obviously be working to fix that -- perhaps Apple could be fit in).
As far as IBM's prices go, IBM's 0.13u process was developed w/UMC and
Infineon, so IBM's prices are probably not as dire as predicted. However
AMD will definitely be getting more fab capacity, if it is true that they
are running at capacity, and they have hipermos 7 too, if that counts for
<strong>Moving to a new architecture would be disastrous for Apple, imagine having PPC Macs and IA-64 (for example) Macs simultaniously? *shudder*
</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple has to move to a new chip architecture, then so be it. It would not necessarily be a disaster. After all, they did a pretty good job of moving from 68K series to PPC.
Good point. OS X should make migration to a new architecture pretty damned easy. Who says they need the powerpc?...bring on the Clawhammer!!! (I have no idea if it would work, but bring it on anyway)
YakManDoo, "Easy" is a relative turn. Yeah, sure, OS X is fairly portable and platform agnostic. This means it might only take a year and a ahlf or two years to rewrite it and then another year to two years to complete the transition. Just look how long its taken to move from OS 9.x to OS X on the SAME hardware platform. Chaning to x86 would be a disaster.
AMD and Motorola did however jointly develop HiPerMOS7, so they could be
acquiring part of Motorola, foundries for example, as I recall, they're
running at capacity (perhaps the reason why Moto's shut their fabs down?).
I suspect however that $500m won't go too far in buying fabs, but anything
could happen with enough scrip </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well they have other funds besides teh $500 million of course, but I doubt AMD would be interested in buying out all of Moto's SPS. At most I would see them grabbing for the Microprocessor design group and possibly MOS13/APRDL, the rest would be fairly out of line with AMD's current ambitions.
Remember who was the head of Motorola's SPS as recently as 2000? Mr. Hector Ruiz, the current President and soon to be CEO of AMD.
Transmeta could be another good bet as well however, there have been rumors on that sort of merger before but nothing ever came about. We'll just have to wait and see.
"Even more interesting, yesterday AMD floated $500 million in convertible bonds for the purpose of "aquisition". Could AMD be preparing to buy out Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector?"<hr></blockquote>
Press Release Dec. 26, 2001
Motorola Files $2 Billion Universal Shelf Registration Statement; Company Has No Immediate Plans To Issue Securities
"The registration statement provides for up to $2 billion of a wide variety of securities, including debt securities, common stock, warrants to purchase common stock or debt securities, stock purchase contracts, and stock purchase units."
"decisively to enter the public capital markets when the time is right."
Debt fuels growth, so this may be a sign that Mot is advancing, not retrenching.
It's not clear what would require the $2 billion. That's about the price of a fab AFAIK, but there are plenty of other things they could spend that money on. For example, they're trying to win back their share of the cell phone market.
<strong>How about new management, brought in from companies that were lean and mean? How about consolidating product lines to reduce engineering costs? Or eliminating the silly conceit of setting several engineering teams to compete with each other on a product in favor of setting one team to design one? How about a more hands-on approach from the CEO? Or shutting down fabs that aren't performing well and subcontracting production out to dedicated fabs like TSMC? There are some pound-foolish - and, one hopes, provisional - cost-cutting measures in there too, but Motorola is turning itself around in meaningful ways.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did you hear about all these things? I should hope some new managers are being hired in at a minimum - any company that is struggling the way they are would hopefully be smart enough to do that much. As for Six Sigma, not anytime soon. Maybe at someone else's fab facility, but not their own IMO.
In general, I'd also like to make the comment that Motorola's problems do NOT stem from the recession, but rather were merely magnified by it. They were going down a seriously unhealthy path long before the bubble burst. This is an upper management problem first and foremost , and a culture problem second. Until they fix those two things don't expect a general market upturn to take Motorola with it.
To continue the ship metaphor, an anchor is an anchor - only the shipmates can bring it back on board, not waves, wind, fish or anything else. Motorola's problem is, they dropped it through the proverbial hull, not over the side so they have boocoo repair work as well.
[quote]<strong>As for Six Sigma, not anytime soon. Maybe at someone else's fab facility, but not their own IMO.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Time will tell. That they're bringing the standard back is news enough.
[quote]<strong>In general, I'd also like to make the comment that Motorola's problems do NOT stem from the recession, but rather were merely magnified by it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True.
My point - and the Bloomberg article's - is that the steps they're taking are not merely the steps a company would take during a recession. They've indentified serious problems with the way they've done things, and they're fixing them.
[quote]<strong>To continue the ship metaphor, an anchor is an anchor - only the shipmates can bring it back on board, not waves, wind, fish or anything else. Motorola's problem is, they dropped it through the proverbial hull, not over the side so they have boocoo repair work as well.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If the Bloomberg article is any indication, the CEO seems to know that his head's in a noose, and that control of Motorola could pass out of his family for the first time ever, so repairs seem to be progressing quickly. Now would be a bad time for Apple to drop them.
[ edit: Trying to get an overlong URL to cooperate -Amorph ]
Motorola has got big problems , but is not finish, this companies is too big for bankruptcy. In case they will sell some divisions of the company but they will survive.
One interesting thought : motorola sell his semiconductor division to IBM
One terrible thought ; motorola sell his semiconductor division to Intel ...
As for OS X's platform transparency, AFAIK Mach is the only thing that
touches the hardware, so it's a good bet that Apple's maintaining ports of
OS X to other platforms (hence maintaining ports of Mach). So porting OS X
wouldn't be a huge deal, and it's safe to assume that Apple would be
maintaining OS X ports to multiple alternative architectures as an extreme
measure.
my 2c.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The processor architecture doesn't count as "hardware" in this case. The OS together with the drivers provides a layer between the applications and the non-processor hardware, but the applications are coded specifically for the processor. The code is compiled into PowerPC assembler, or hand coded in PowerPC assember, and if they were to switch to another processor ALL software would need to be recompiled at the very least. This works for 95% of the code, but the other 5% takes a lot more effort. Switching processors would not be as easy as you think, and would be hugely disruptive. This time around I think it would kill Apple.
Well i a m ready to bet that Motorola won't go to bankruptcy. They are recession so they react in the right way : they fire thousands of persons in order to stay alive. When the times will be better they will growth again.
An other possibilities is a fusion with a bigger companie. Example Mercedes make a fusion with Chrisler.
<strong>YakManDoo, "Easy" is a relative turn. Yeah, sure, OS X is fairly portable and platform agnostic. This means it might only take a year and a ahlf or two years to rewrite it and then another year to two years to complete the transition. Just look how long its taken to move from OS 9.x to OS X on the SAME hardware platform. Chaning to x86 would be a disaster.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Wow, this makes very little sense to me...please explain. Apple needs market share like pagans need Jesus and the only way to get it is to get OS X into the hands of the masses. Do you know how many geeks want OSX but don't want the current Apple hardware? OS X on x86 hardware would really propel Apple ...let them innovate in the form factor area using up to date hardware that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
Comments
bankrupt.
Learn to read already, would you? I didn't say that Motorola was too large
to go broke, I said that Motorola WON'T go broke. I said what's going to
happen rather than waste my time stating the blindingly obvious (of course
companies go broke. companies declare bankruptcy all the time.)
Moogs: K-mart and Enron anyone? Wake up dude...just because they were
strong in the past or are a big company doesn't mean they can control the
financial slide they're in.
Don't talk down to me, I'm not stupid, I don't need to `wake up'. Given
the first passage, perhaps you're the one in need of comprehension lessons?
Moogs: Like I said, give it six months. If they continue to struggle this
badly, they're finished. Would you buy stock in Motorola right now?
How depressed is it? What's the present value of Moto's future
profitability? Seeing as Motorola will most likely emerge from this slump
(once again, Moto is NOT going broke), and return to profitability, I
probably would, if it was sufficiently depressed (among other
considerations, but the price one pays determines one's rate of return).
Moogs: Would you buy stock if they had a marginal quarter next time around
(let along another big loss)? Neither would I.
Where will the stock be in (say) ten years? As I asked already, what's the
present value of the future profits?
Moogs: If you had a bunch of shares, would you sell them all if the price
went up a few dollars from where it is now, but without any indication
that major changes are being made (besides layoffs)? Me too.
I wouldn't, seeing as I'd probably have to pay capital gains tax on it,
eating my return. I'd rather wait for Moto to return to profitability, and
watch as the great unwashed flock back and the price rises on anticipation
of Moto's future profitability. As I said above, if the price is
sufficiently depressed, I might even buy up (subject to other
considerations, but one of the most important of these is the current
market cap of the company and whether or not it is undervalued.)
Moogs: I am not just saying this crap; it's common sense. MOT shareholders
are getting pounded and whoever among them is willing to keep waiting
things out, won't be if drastic improvements aren't made in the next six
months.
Motorola has a debt/equity ratio of 0.68. Not brilliant, but significantly
superior to IBM's 1.15 (as i recall). Motorola also has ~$6.2b in the
bank, so even if they go broke servicing debt (not with turnover of $30b+
annually), they'll still be here in a few years time, feeding on that cash
pile. By then they should have returned to profitability -- which has been
slated for as early as 2H02 -- and down goes the d/e ratio as they retire
debt, and up goes the cashpile... (one, or both, depending on what the
board feels like, and their obligations, I guess).
Moogs: This is how business words, bud. You either get your shareholders
to buy into what you're doing, or you die.
You place far too much emphasis on the shareholder. The shareholder
doesn't matter a toss to Motorola, and they shouldn't. Motorola's only
concern is with profitability (the more, the better). If the shareholders
don't "buy into what [Moto's] doing", fine, it doesn't bother Motorola one
bit, and it shouldn't; as long as Moto is sufficiently profitable, the
company has done its job. The shareholder's don't need to "buy into
anything" (you're using the colloquial `buy', as in `have faith'? My
point stands whether you mean `buy' colloquially, or literally, as in
`buy more shares'. Either way Moto doesn't need to give a toss, for
reasons outlined above.)
Moogs: As for comparisons to Apple, there is noe comparison. When Apple
was struggling and people were saying "they're going to die", they weren't
losing .5 to 1+ billion dollars a QUARTER, were they?
Apple lost $740m in 1Q96, as i recall. However, pointing out nominal
losses (".5 to 1+ billion dollars a QUARTER") is pointless if one doesn't
take into consideration their respective turnovers. If Motorola's turnover
(say, over the past twelve months) was between five and five-and-a-half
times larger than Apple's, why would losses and profits of similar
magnitude be so surprising?
Moogs: Motorola has taken two or three huge losses in a row. You can do
all the math you want, but don't forget about shareholder psychology in
all this. They are teetering on the brink, period.
This is an interesting statement. Does "shareholder psychology" affect
Motorola's profitability (which is precisely what's under question here)?
Does shareholder psychology affect Motorola's turnover? Precisely what
does this nebulous `shareholder psychology' do, anyway, apart from give
canny investors bargain stakes in Motorola?
<strong>
The fabs that I know of that are currently in phase out or have been
announced for phase out are MOS8 in Austin, BiPolar 1,2, and 3 in Phoenix,
and MOS4 and MOS6 in Phoenix. To my knowledge G4 processors are only
produced in MOS12 in Phoenix and MOS13 in Austin. And possibly in their
MOS17 in China.
Even more interesting, yesterday AMD floated $500 million in convertible
bonds for the purpose of "aquisition". Could AMD be preparing to buy out
Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I recall hearing that Motorola's SPS was worth ~$9 billion. An all-scrip
deal is possible, but I doubt AMD would want to take on a division larger
than AMD itself
AMD and Motorola did however jointly develop HiPerMOS7, so they could be
acquiring part of Motorola, foundries for example, as I recall, they're
running at capacity (perhaps the reason why Moto's shut their fabs down?).
I suspect however that $500m won't go too far in buying fabs, but anything
could happen with enough scrip
A M D
<strong>Three letters gentlemen:
A M D</strong><hr></blockquote>
Now I like AMD just as much as the next guy, but optimally, Apple and IBM
would wrest the necessary bits and pieces from Moto, and work on it in a
joint venture (nice and neat eh?). IBM hence would be the logical choice
of foundry partner. So as great as AMD is, I fail to see precisely where
they come into the picture. Fabrication is a possibility, if they increase
their volume, and since they cooperated in the HPMOS7 development they
figure in the equation, but regarding the two spheres we're concerned
with, namely design/development and fabrication, AMD won't (shouldn't?
can't see any reason why...) figure in PPC design or development.
Fabrication, Apple has a whole bunch of companies they could turn to.
<strong>AMD would give Apple good quality fab at good prices. IBM would rape them. Can you say $4,500 for the top o' the line PMac? Apple cannot afford to pay IBM's premium in this market.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I suppose, but there's a heap of companies that could do the same, and AMD
is running at capacity, despite the depressed PC market (although they'd
obviously be working to fix that -- perhaps Apple could be fit in).
As far as IBM's prices go, IBM's 0.13u process was developed w/UMC and
Infineon, so IBM's prices are probably not as dire as predicted. However
AMD will definitely be getting more fab capacity, if it is true that they
are running at capacity, and they have hipermos 7 too, if that counts for
anything.
<strong>Moving to a new architecture would be disastrous for Apple, imagine having PPC Macs and IA-64 (for example) Macs simultaniously? *shudder*
</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple has to move to a new chip architecture, then so be it. It would not necessarily be a disaster. After all, they did a pretty good job of moving from 68K series to PPC.
Good point. OS X should make migration to a new architecture pretty damned easy. Who says they need the powerpc?...bring on the Clawhammer!!! (I have no idea if it would work, but bring it on anyway)
<strong>
AMD and Motorola did however jointly develop HiPerMOS7, so they could be
acquiring part of Motorola, foundries for example, as I recall, they're
running at capacity (perhaps the reason why Moto's shut their fabs down?).
I suspect however that $500m won't go too far in buying fabs, but anything
could happen with enough scrip
Well they have other funds besides teh $500 million of course, but I doubt AMD would be interested in buying out all of Moto's SPS. At most I would see them grabbing for the Microprocessor design group and possibly MOS13/APRDL, the rest would be fairly out of line with AMD's current ambitions.
Remember who was the head of Motorola's SPS as recently as 2000? Mr. Hector Ruiz, the current President and soon to be CEO of AMD.
Transmeta could be another good bet as well however, there have been rumors on that sort of merger before but nothing ever came about. We'll just have to wait and see.
"Even more interesting, yesterday AMD floated $500 million in convertible bonds for the purpose of "aquisition". Could AMD be preparing to buy out Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector?"<hr></blockquote>
Press Release Dec. 26, 2001
Motorola Files $2 Billion Universal Shelf Registration Statement; Company Has No Immediate Plans To Issue Securities
"The registration statement provides for up to $2 billion of a wide variety of securities, including debt securities, common stock, warrants to purchase common stock or debt securities, stock purchase contracts, and stock purchase units."
"decisively to enter the public capital markets when the time is right."
<a href="http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,1958,914_650_23,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,1958,914_65 0_23,00.html</a>
Wonder what Motorola needs $2 Billion in extra change for?
[ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: rickag ]</p>
Debt fuels growth, so this may be a sign that Mot is advancing, not retrenching.
It's not clear what would require the $2 billion. That's about the price of a fab AFAIK, but there are plenty of other things they could spend that money on. For example, they're trying to win back their share of the cell phone market.
turn. Yeah, sure, OS X is fairly portable and platform agnostic. This
means it might only take a year and a ahlf or two years to rewrite it and
then another year to two years to complete the transition. Just look how
long its taken to move from OS 9.x to OS X on the SAME hardware platform.
Chaning to x86 would be a disaster.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The Swan: Anytime, i love drawn-out debates
As for OS X's platform transparency, AFAIK Mach is the only thing that
touches the hardware, so it's a good bet that Apple's maintaining ports of
OS X to other platforms (hence maintaining ports of Mach). So porting OS X
wouldn't be a huge deal, and it's safe to assume that Apple would be
maintaining OS X ports to multiple alternative architectures as an extreme
measure.
my 2c.
<strong>How about new management, brought in from companies that were lean and mean? How about consolidating product lines to reduce engineering costs? Or eliminating the silly conceit of setting several engineering teams to compete with each other on a product in favor of setting one team to design one? How about a more hands-on approach from the CEO? Or shutting down fabs that aren't performing well and subcontracting production out to dedicated fabs like TSMC? There are some pound-foolish - and, one hopes, provisional - cost-cutting measures in there too, but Motorola is turning itself around in meaningful ways.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did you hear about all these things? I should hope some new managers are being hired in at a minimum - any company that is struggling the way they are would hopefully be smart enough to do that much. As for Six Sigma, not anytime soon. Maybe at someone else's fab facility, but not their own IMO.
In general, I'd also like to make the comment that Motorola's problems do NOT stem from the recession, but rather were merely magnified by it. They were going down a seriously unhealthy path long before the bubble burst. This is an upper management problem first and foremost , and a culture problem second. Until they fix those two things don't expect a general market upturn to take Motorola with it.
To continue the ship metaphor, an anchor is an anchor - only the shipmates can bring it back on board, not waves, wind, fish or anything else. Motorola's problem is, they dropped it through the proverbial hull, not over the side so they have boocoo repair work as well.
[ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ? ]</p>
<strong>Where did you hear about all these things?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I got them from a recent <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Technology News&s1=blk&T=market s_bfgcgi_content99.ht&s=APE0ZrRW1TW90b3Jv" target="_blank">Bloomberg article</a>. I couldn't find the link when I posted, of course, but this time I managed to dig it up.
[quote]<strong>As for Six Sigma, not anytime soon. Maybe at someone else's fab facility, but not their own IMO.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Time will tell. That they're bringing the standard back is news enough.
[quote]<strong>In general, I'd also like to make the comment that Motorola's problems do NOT stem from the recession, but rather were merely magnified by it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True.
My point - and the Bloomberg article's - is that the steps they're taking are not merely the steps a company would take during a recession. They've indentified serious problems with the way they've done things, and they're fixing them.
[quote]<strong>To continue the ship metaphor, an anchor is an anchor - only the shipmates can bring it back on board, not waves, wind, fish or anything else. Motorola's problem is, they dropped it through the proverbial hull, not over the side so they have boocoo repair work as well.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If the Bloomberg article is any indication, the CEO seems to know that his head's in a noose, and that control of Motorola could pass out of his family for the first time ever, so repairs seem to be progressing quickly.
[ edit: Trying to get an overlong URL to cooperate -Amorph ]
[ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>
Motorola has got big problems , but is not finish, this companies is too big for bankruptcy. In case they will sell some divisions of the company but they will survive.
One interesting thought : motorola sell his semiconductor division to IBM
One terrible thought ; motorola sell his semiconductor division to Intel ...
<img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
To big for bankruptcy? Can you say Enron?
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
tsukurite
<strong>
As for OS X's platform transparency, AFAIK Mach is the only thing that
touches the hardware, so it's a good bet that Apple's maintaining ports of
OS X to other platforms (hence maintaining ports of Mach). So porting OS X
wouldn't be a huge deal, and it's safe to assume that Apple would be
maintaining OS X ports to multiple alternative architectures as an extreme
measure.
my 2c.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The processor architecture doesn't count as "hardware" in this case. The OS together with the drivers provides a layer between the applications and the non-processor hardware, but the applications are coded specifically for the processor. The code is compiled into PowerPC assembler, or hand coded in PowerPC assember, and if they were to switch to another processor ALL software would need to be recompiled at the very least. This works for 95% of the code, but the other 5% takes a lot more effort. Switching processors would not be as easy as you think, and would be hugely disruptive. This time around I think it would kill Apple.
<strong>
To big for bankruptcy? Can you say Enron?
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
tsukurite</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well i a m ready to bet that Motorola won't go to bankruptcy. They are recession so they react in the right way : they fire thousands of persons in order to stay alive. When the times will be better they will growth again.
An other possibilities is a fusion with a bigger companie. Example Mercedes make a fusion with Chrisler.
<strong>YakManDoo, "Easy" is a relative turn. Yeah, sure, OS X is fairly portable and platform agnostic. This means it might only take a year and a ahlf or two years to rewrite it and then another year to two years to complete the transition. Just look how long its taken to move from OS 9.x to OS X on the SAME hardware platform. Chaning to x86 would be a disaster.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Wow, this makes very little sense to me...please explain. Apple needs market share like pagans need Jesus and the only way to get it is to get OS X into the hands of the masses. Do you know how many geeks want OSX but don't want the current Apple hardware? OS X on x86 hardware would really propel Apple ...let them innovate in the form factor area using up to date hardware that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.