NVIDIA Loses Huge GPU Order Due To Linux Blob
Posted by Michael Larabel on June 22, 2012
NVIDIA has lost an order of at least ten million graphics cards because their GeForce/Quadro driver is closed-source.
The Chinese, who also developed the Loongson MIPS CPU, were looking to order at least ten million graphics processors. The problem is that the GeForce / Quadro driver from NVIDIA is only available for Linux x86 and x86_64 architectures, not MIPS or even ARM (only the Tegra driver is for ARMv7). NVIDIA refused to release the source-code to their high-performance feature-complete cross-platform driver to the Chinese, and it would cost them millions of dollars to port the code-base, so they went to AMD for their GPU order.
The order was at least for ten million GPUs, which given the current low-end parts, would value the order at least 250 to 350 million dollars (USD). However, I've heard from a separate source that it was closer to the half billion dollar mark.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTEyNTE
nVidia a jej obrat za Q4 2012, ktory jej skoncil 31.1.2012(holt roky a kvartl si urcuje firma ako chce)
in millions except per Q4 FY12
share data) GAAP
Revenue $953.2
Ale vaznejsi je zisk pre graficku diviziu AMD
v Q1 2012(do 31.3.2012)
bol obrat celej grafickej divize AMD 382 mil. USD
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/press-release-2012apr19.aspx
Keby to neboli obchodne tahy AMD z minulosti, bolo by to zasluzene
Vtip moze byt aj v tomto. AMD ten MIPS ¨predalo Cine¨ v roku 2002. A potom ten MIPS vlozilo do svojej ¨dcerskej¨ Raza microelectronics.
V tip je este aj v tom, ze zakladatel Alchemy Semiconductor a hlava tymu, co vyvinula CPU architekty Alpha as Strong ARM, Rich Witek(http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/Press_Release_43200.aspx), je teraz sefom ARM timu microsoftu
A teraz ten predaj Cine
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/Press_Release_43992.aspx
kupa MIPS
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/Press_Release_14491.aspx
a jeho vlazenia do dcerskej spolocnosti
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/Press_Release_109665.aspx
Odchod ATOQUA rAZA-U Z amd
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/Press_Release_768.aspx
Mozno to pre nich nie je az taka strata. nvidia ma zrejme v zdrojakoch driverov implementovane klucove technologie, ktore nechcu odhalit. Keby dali cinankom zdrojaky tak by sme tu mali do roka nejaky cinsky klon geforcov a to im za tych "par melonov" nestoji. Tie grafiky tak ci tak niekde predaju. Cina si urcite za chvilu spravi svoj uzavrety klon linuxu - pandux :-) .