Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:22 AM BST
DUBLIN, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Irish venture capital firm TVC Holdings (TVCH.I: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Monday it had agreed to sell its stake in software provider Havok Inc. to Intel (INTC.O: Quote, Profile , Research) for around $21 million.
The Dublin-based firm (TVCH.L: Quote, Profile , Research) said this was its first realisation since it began trading on London's AIM and Dublin's IEX stock markets in July.
TVC Holdings said in a statement the deal was expected to be closed in five days and it would sell its stake of just over 27 percent to Intel.
"We are pleased to announce this deal, which is a successful exit at a fair price," said TVC Holdings Executive Chairman Shane Reihill.
Havok, a Dublin-based company founded in 1998, will be a wholly owned subsidiary of California-based Intel and would continue to operate as an independent business.
TVC Holdings said the acquisition of Havok's entire share capital by Intel was valued at around $110 million.
Havok's technology has been used in some of the most widely known video game titles, including "BioShock," "Stranglehold," "Halo 2," and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".
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Battle Between Intel And AMD Heats Up
CRN logo By Robert Faletra, CMP Channel
12:00 AM EDT Mon. Sep. 17, 2007
From the September 17, 2007 issue of CRN
In case you haven't been watching, the PR and marketing teams at AMD and Intel have been working overtime trying to one-up each other with announcements and press meetings.
Intel, which lost its stranglehold on the microprocessor market long ago, announced new quad-core chips a few days before AMD's long-anticipated entrance into the quad-core market with an impressive chip of its own.
Now that AMD has entered the market with a solid offering for the server market and is expected to do the same for the desktop arena later this year, the battle for market share moves away from who has the latest technology with all the speeds and feeds and into blocking and tackling moves. And when it comes to the basics, AMD seems to have momentum on its side.
ROBERT FALETRA
Can be reached at (617) 517-6070 or via e-mail at rfaletra@cmp.com.
According to market researcher iSuppli, AMD picked up 2.5 points of worldwide market share on Intel over the previous quarter. If you're concerned about Intel's health, however, you can relax—it still has a whopping 78.8 percent of the market, according to iSuppli. So rest assured AMD is likely to remain the underdog.
But along with the new product announcements (search ChannelWeb.com for more on that), the two chip makers are getting down and dirty in the market with a price battle. That severe pricing pressure isn't expected to subside anytime soon.
Given that Intel is on the losing end of the most recent market-share numbers, my bet is that it just may be the leader in dragging AMD into a price battle. Regardless of who is more aggressive, this all spells lower pricing for leading-edge chips that OEMs and systems builders are stuffing into higher-end servers.
The fact is that the resurrected and more interesting AMD of the past few years has forced Intel to behave differently in the market. Both companies have very astute managers and, as such, we can expect to see lots of innovation in product, pricing and programs in the coming months.
The attempts on the part of both companies to stay a step ahead of each other won't be limited to product specifications, however. AMD's ability to go toe-to-toe with Intel on chip design these past few years has devalued the Intel brand as the single, most powerful point of differentiation and pushed the competitive fight onto a much wider battlefield.
Now that AMD is a part of every major OEM's product arsenal, Intel is no longer able to command a price premium.
Ultimately, this battle between AMD and Intel will drive innovation and market expansion. We should be cheering for both of them.
Do you see a winner in the Intel-AMD battle?
Make something happen. Contact CMP Channel President Robert Faletra at rfaletra@cmp.com or (617) 517-6070.
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Intel May Speed Chip Development in Bid to Foil Advanced Micro
Last Updated: September 17, 2007 00:17 EDT
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Intel Corp. Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini may speed up work on faster computer chips in a bid to undercut Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s biggest product debut in four years.
Advanced Micro promoted its new chip, Barcelona, with a party hosted by CEO Hector Ruiz a week ago at filmmaker George Lucas's Letterman Digital Arts Center. The invitations hailed the event as ``the most anticipated premiere of 2007.''
Intel, the world's biggest computer-chip maker, may use a conference beginning tomorrow in San Francisco to give more details of a new chip design called Nehalem to upstage the Barcelona, UBS AG analyst Uche Orji said. Some existing processors of Intel already outstrip Advanced Micro's new chip.
``They have their foot very solidly on AMD's throat,'' said Hans Mosesmann, a New York-based analyst for Raymond James & Associates Inc. who rates Intel shares ``buy'' and doesn't own them. ``They just keep on putting the pressure on.''
After losing orders in 2005 and sinking to its lowest market share in 11 years in 2006, Santa Clara, California-based Intel revamped its designs and started to win back sales. Intel will spend $10.6 billion on research and factory equipment this year to build faster processors, more than three times Advanced Micro's budget.
Otellini may move up the schedule for shrinking the size of the wires inside semiconductors by 25 percent, to 45 nanometers, said Orji, who is based in New York. About 400 of the new transistors would fit on the surface of a single human red blood cell.
`Much More Detail'
``Intel will provide much more detail regarding upcoming products and technologies'' at the three-day conference, said Tom Beermann, an Intel spokesman. He declined to comment on specific plans.
``The competitive dynamic shifted to AMD's favor,'' said John Fruehe, a marketing manager for Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro, the second-largest maker of computer processors. The company is ramping up the performance of the Barcelona quickly and ``much hard work looms ahead'' for Intel, he said.
Advanced Micro's Barcelona processor runs at 2 gigahertz. Intel began selling 3 gigahertz chips Aug. 13.
Intel rebounded to claim 76 percent of the market last quarter, 2 points higher than at the end of 2006, and last week raised its third-quarter sales forecast. Otellini accelerated development of some chips by three months for buyers such as Dell Inc. after Intel trailed Advanced Micro in technology including putting two processors into one piece of silicon.
Intel stock, up 23 percent this year, fell 42 cents to $24.93 Sept. 14 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Advanced Micro shares fell 4 cents to $12.69 on Sept. 14 and are down 38 percent this year.
YouTube Response
Intel responded to the Barcelona debut with a spot on the YouTube video-sharing Web site, where Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger said the company will demonstrate a working chip with the 45-nanometer wires at the show.
Presentations will focus on a ``tick/tock'' plan calling for Intel to introduce a design one year and a manufacturing upgrade the next, Gelsinger said. It took Advanced Micro four years to update its chip design, and the debut was about six months late.
Intel co-founder Gordon Moore will speak at the event for the first time since 1999. The creator of ``Moore's Law,'' the prediction that has set the pace for improvement in the computer industry for 40 years, will give a speech to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the invention of the transistor. Moore's Law says the power of chips should double every two years.
Intel last year replaced its Pentium design with one called Core, which is better at performing multiple tasks simultaneously, making it faster and more power-efficient.
``Intel is going to come out swinging,'' said JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Christopher Danely in San Francisco.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net
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