Apple and AMD – One Hand Washes the Other

The famous company from Santa Clara, and the really famous one from Cupertino, are both a bit beleaguered these days, with AMD having problems fighting off the gains in CPU marketshare of Intel, and Apple fighting off the onslaught of the many PC companies, all eager to take a bite out of the Apple pie.

One difference between the companies is that Apple is profitable, and though Apple uses the Intel processor line, it can help AMD by buying ATi video chips for its machines. AMD gains, Apple gains. Apple has just bought up a rather large supply of the AMD/ATi 48xx series cards, which is probably why the remaining supply has not dropped in price on places like Newegg.

The launch of Radeon 5800 series and subsequent launch of Radeon 5700 was greeted by immense number of positive reviews. In all fairness, AMD did an excellent job in infusing DirectX 11 technology into its R700-like architecture and adding immersive features such as Eyefinity. Personally, I consider Eyefinity to be one of infliction points for next generation gaming. The decision to bundle DirectX 11 games is also an important one - DiRT 2 and/or BattleForge.

However, AMD’s own partners are growling about shortage of parts all across the board. Given that the allocation for 5000 series is limited, partners tried to fulfill their backlog for all those 4800 orders. As it usually happen, things are progressing nicely in the AIB shark-pool until a big shark comes in and snatches the allocation.

According to our sources, Apple was the Great White for Q3 2009. The giant from Cupertino bought complete 60-day, two month stock of ATI Radeon 4000 series chips, most notably the Radeon HD 4850. This “shopping” by Apple was caused by AMD’s sales initiative in order to try to get into black for Q3′09. Remember -  Dirk Meyer promised that AMD would return to profitability in H2′2009 - and ATI sales folks are certainly doing the best they can to achieve just that.

The new Apple machines will feature ATI Radeon HD 4850 as a more affordable BTO [Build-To-Order] option, complementing current ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB as a $399 option. We are not aware when the Apple BTO system refresh will happen, but expect an announcement in the next couple of weeks.

All in all, it looks like ATI is really saving AMD’s bacon, because if there weren’t for that ATI purchase, AMD would look gloomy indeed. Instead, you’ll see quite good news on the graphics front in those Q3 2009 financial results. Will this Apple’s two-month stock buyout enough to pull the company into the black? Only time will tell - we only need to wait until tomorrow

The above story from Bright Side of News broke yesterday, and we know today that AMD did not post a profit, but did close the gap on getting into the black.

The PC world is a strange one, and the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” applies more than ever. AMD lives to fight another day because of this, and perhaps Apple will, in the future, decide to use some of the AMD CPU designs, but that will certainly not happen until AMD shows something that can challenge Intel’s upper end.

The loser here is nVidia, which now has one less OEM to supply. No doubt there will be many nVidia boards put into Intel mainboards, but nVidia’s days are numbered if Intel brings Larrabee out soon.

This is also an interesting twist in that both of these companies, AMD and Apple, are using secondary income to propel, and sustain, the primary industry of the respective company. Apple uses the iPod and iPhone to prop up the Mac, and AMD uses the ATi video production to propel it back to relevancy.

That purchase of ATi, though a big gamble at the time, looks more and more like a great idea, and that Hector Ruiz had a touch of Nostradamus in him when that deal was struck.

It’s only a matter of time before AMD comes up with an answer to the i-series –processors, and though it might be nice to strike a blow with something crushing, most would be eminently satisfied with a CPU model that would bring back parity in the market. It would benefit so many more than simply AMD.

§

⌘

⌘