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You aren't wrong, but you're trying to explain a symphony with the sheet music for the brass section. While strictly accurate, it isn't a complete enough picture to do anything with.
Explaining myself, AMD is basically three separate entities wrapped together. These entities are the CPU division, the GPU division, and the licensing division. The two former are easy to explain. AMD was a CPU centric company in the "good ole' days." They competed directly with Intel, and generally made more affordable (if mildly inferior) products. AMD purchased ATI, which is the origin of the GPU centric segment. The patents and licensing division is slightly anemic, but AMD has pioneered some technologies. Leveraging patents is an easy way to make money, without capital investment.
Licensing is functionally not worth looking at. Patent trolling aside, lawyers just don't make a company run.
CPU and GPU development is where AMD has tried to shine. AMD lagged Intel because of significantly smaller investments into research, as well as targeting a completely different market.
While some theorists will claim AMD had a fighting chance until Intel began to make back room deals, I believe AMD began to fail because they set themselves up as Intel's shadow. When the PC market began to stabilize and contract (basically the same time that over-saturation began damaging the market) AMD found itself in a precarious position. The traditional market for computers was contracting, so a budget minded company couldn't exist.
Cue purchasing ATI. ATI and Nvidea were the primary graphics device creating entities. By acquiring ATI, AMD gained a significant foot-hold into a new market. By diversifying, they made it substantially harder to remove themselves from the market. Floating along on profits from ATI, AMD maintained their CPU division. When the economic down-turn came, AMD found itself in a difficult position. They couldn't compete with Intel on performance, and people that had extra cash demanded performance for their dollar. It's at this point that cheap ARM devices were making it to the market, and I believe someone high up at AMD decided that a new plan of action must be hatched. They began fusing the AMD and ATI strengths, to produce a low cost GPU/CPU hybrid.
Now begins the story of APU. It doesn't have any new technology, but it does make an integrated graphics option finally viable for a low cost solution. AMD capitalized on the low cost low power device market, and made the bold move of changing architectures. They went from a CPU and GPU glued together, to something more akin to their current vision of heterogeneous computing. Very low costs, with decent integrated graphics. The console manufacturers saw this as a cost savings measure (read: no dealing with power pc and easy porting from system to system). With two of the three largest console manufacturers on board, AMD is in a very good spot. They aren't pulling down large amounts of money, but they have consistent production.
So, is AMD dead; no. Is AMD competing with Intel; not any more. Is this due to a miniscule research budget; not really. AMD bet on a new architecture, and a new form of computing. Their pure CPUs are languishing because of this bet, but they aren't anywhere near dead.
Explaining myself, AMD is basically three separate entities wrapped together. These entities are the CPU division, the GPU division, and the licensing division. The two former are easy to explain. AMD was a CPU centric company in the "good ole' days." They competed directly with Intel, and generally made more affordable (if mildly inferior) products. AMD purchased ATI, which is the origin of the GPU centric segment. The patents and licensing division is slightly anemic, but AMD has pioneered some technologies. Leveraging patents is an easy way to make money, without capital investment.
Licensing is functionally not worth looking at. Patent trolling aside, lawyers just don't make a company run.
CPU and GPU development is where AMD has tried to shine. AMD lagged Intel because of significantly smaller investments into research, as well as targeting a completely different market.
While some theorists will claim AMD had a fighting chance until Intel began to make back room deals, I believe AMD began to fail because they set themselves up as Intel's shadow. When the PC market began to stabilize and contract (basically the same time that over-saturation began damaging the market) AMD found itself in a precarious position. The traditional market for computers was contracting, so a budget minded company couldn't exist.
Cue purchasing ATI. ATI and Nvidea were the primary graphics device creating entities. By acquiring ATI, AMD gained a significant foot-hold into a new market. By diversifying, they made it substantially harder to remove themselves from the market. Floating along on profits from ATI, AMD maintained their CPU division. When the economic down-turn came, AMD found itself in a difficult position. They couldn't compete with Intel on performance, and people that had extra cash demanded performance for their dollar. It's at this point that cheap ARM devices were making it to the market, and I believe someone high up at AMD decided that a new plan of action must be hatched. They began fusing the AMD and ATI strengths, to produce a low cost GPU/CPU hybrid.
Now begins the story of APU. It doesn't have any new technology, but it does make an integrated graphics option finally viable for a low cost solution. AMD capitalized on the low cost low power device market, and made the bold move of changing architectures. They went from a CPU and GPU glued together, to something more akin to their current vision of heterogeneous computing. Very low costs, with decent integrated graphics. The console manufacturers saw this as a cost savings measure (read: no dealing with power pc and easy porting from system to system). With two of the three largest console manufacturers on board, AMD is in a very good spot. They aren't pulling down large amounts of money, but they have consistent production.
So, is AMD dead; no. Is AMD competing with Intel; not any more. Is this due to a miniscule research budget; not really. AMD bet on a new architecture, and a new form of computing. Their pure CPUs are languishing because of this bet, but they aren't anywhere near dead.