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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems
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To: SteveC who wrote (50252)7/9/2002 2:18:57 AM
From: QwikSand  Read Replies (3) of 64865
 
If Sun bought AMD--which with AMD's $3B market cap is not FINANCIALLY infeasible--AMD's relationship with Microsoft would immediately go to zero. No Win64 on Hammer (not ever), no future for x86-64 with any big-name Wintel server box maker, etc.

Microsoft and AMD may not be great buddies, but Microsoft has publicly encouraged x86-64 and is generally assumed to be cooperating with a Win64 port to it. Today, if you install Windows XP on an Athlon box, the first time you use Windows Update, XP automatically updates itself with a special kernel module that exploits Athlon features. Since I am typing on such a machine at this moment, I can verify that this module enhances rather than degrades performance.

Reasonable people could differ on this question, but my guess is that if AMD was acquired by Sun, MSFT would not only drop any thought of supporting Hammer like a hot potato, but would also "forget" to maintain the XP Athlon module they now distribute.

That would leave Sun trying to support not one but two low-volume 64-bit architectures without software support from MSFT and also put Athlon's continued existence in jeopardy.

Linux rides to the rescue or something? Two SUNW sales forces selling competing 64-bit servers against each other, with a mess to resolve like HPQ? AMD becomes SUN's fab so they get new SPARC chips out on time instead of 18 months late, so it can compete against Itanic more effectively?

I don't see the benefit to either party.

--QS
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