AMD & Transmeta v. Intel
Well, the news came out this weekend that AMD was investing a few $million in Transmeta. No mention of really why they were investing or what AMD was getting out of it. Transmeta had already left the hardware market. Ostensibly there’s some kind of low power synergy to be leveraged between the two companies, but no mention of any sort of collaboration was mentioned in the press release.
Transmeta may not be in the CPU business anymore, but here’s what Transmeta does have going for it - a lawsuit against Intel. I’d say that this timely investment is pretty much the same thing that Microsoft did when it invested in SCO (who had a lawsuit going against everyone). It let’s the suit go on longer and keeps part of the competition’s attention distracted. Even better if they win the suit.
I mean, I don’t know from anything, but I just don’t see what else they’d be getting. Any sort of joint efforts, I’d think, would be announced in the press release. If there was significant IP to be had, AMD would have bought Transmeta. I mean, if you’re going to invest in someone you generally say why your investing in them and what you hope to get from that. Shareholders typically like to know that stuff. However, if the only reason you’re investing is to keep a their suit going strong it’s kind of hard to put that in a press release, so you just mumble platitudes instead.
