The news is (almost) official. AMD are going to acquire ATI in an estimated $5.4 billion move. This will happen approximately three hours from when this post goes live (at 8.00am EDT 24th July 2006.) So what will this mean for the industry?

I think that it can only be a good thing. Intel have long been at the top in the home and in industry and from my experience, AMD offer a comparable and in some ways better product. You tend to gain more bang for less bucks with an AMD processor. From my experience, one of the reasons AMD haven’t really been able to break into the corporate environment is because intel have the full package of chips. They have the processor, the chipset and the graphics all on the same board. Of course, if you want flashy gaming graphics you tend to get something like an Nvidia or an ATI bundled with the machine - not so for the corporate world. They neither need or care about the latest 3D technology, so long as Excel runs OK.

So hopefully we will have the opportunity soon to see a real impression by AMD into the corporate and commercial sectors with a complete package that will seriously question intel’s dominance.

>>article has been amended to include a ink to AMD’s press release<<

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