Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NYSE : AMD) completed its $5.4 billion acquisition of ATI today which was originally announced July 24, 2006. Now that the deal is done work can be done on building new projects. Thus it only makes sense to announce something. The first products to be released in 2008 are being called ‘Fusion’ technology. I imagine that this will basically be a combination of a CPU and a graphics card on one chip. Most likely, this new technology will find its way into a mobile solutions, although there is probably still a market for them with desktops similar to systems with onboard graphics cards. They have also mentioned that this new technology will in no way prevent users from using discrete high-end video cards, good news if you are an NVIDIA fan.
After the 112 days since the original announcement, I still don’t know if this deal is going to help AMD win the race against Intel. This kind of investment into a graphics card company will pay dividends in the short-term with the purchase of new technology and the acquisition of qualified technical staff. In the long term, I believe that this is just going to help AMD catch up to the level that Intel is already at. This deal will not be giving AMD any sort of competitive advantage as Intel can continue its development into their on-board graphics solutions. The big winner from everything is going to be NVIDIA, they will continue to control the graphics card market on Intel systems, with even less competition now.
As part of Honda Motor Co. Ltd’s (NYSE: HMC) strategy to meet consumer demand for fuel efficent vehicles, production of the Civic Sedan will be increased at its Plant 2 in Allison, Ontario. To accomdate this increased production, Honda is going to slowly move all production of its Pilot to Lincoln, Alabama plant. The rearranging of production is also being complimented with increased production. The new engine plant for Allison is scheduled to open in 2008 and will operate at 200,000 4-cylinder engines annually. In Canada, during the month of September, Civic sales were up 45%. I am interested in how the October numbers look so I can say that I helped to contribute.
This is just a reminder to anyone that SIRIUS Internet Radio has a free preview for the next couple days (Oct 25, 26). They are promoting it heavily by saying you can listen to Howard Stern. For anyone who is remotely interested in SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ : SIRI), it is not a bad idea to hear what programming they have to offer, even if it isn’t their entire programming package. For the two day trial they are advertising 75 channels of 100% commercial free music and talk with CD quality sound. Myself, I enjoy using my subscription to listen online at work during the day, and then to listen in the car for the drive home.
SIRIUS Internet Radio is available seperately from the SIRIUS Satellite Radio although the Satellite Subscription should still allow you to listen online. It will cost $12.95/month for the internet radio. I also enjoy the sports aspects of Sirius. Sirius is the official provider of the NFL, NHL, NBA and Nascar (starting in 2007). There have been a number of times now that I was unable to be at home to watch a game so I listened in the car while I was driving. I recommend satellite radio to everyone who would like to listen to regular radio but don’t because of their poor local radio selection.
On Monday October 16, 2006 Sirius Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) announced that the launch of SIRIUS Internet Radio (SIR), a CD quality internet only version of its radio service. The service will include more than 75 channels of Sirius programming, without the use of any equiptment, all for the price of $12.95 per month. To launch the service, Sirius is having two free days of service on October 25, and 26. This will include all of Sirius’s 100% commercial free music stations, talk, entertainment, sports, and not to mention The Howard Stern Show. They are touting this as the first time that Howard has been available to a worldwide audience.
For more details on the announcement, you can see can take a look at the press release from Sirius.
Sirius today announced that it ended the third quarter with 5,119,308 subscribers, 135% above third quarter 2005 ending subscribers of 2,173,920. SIRIUS added 441,101 net subscribers in the third quarter of 2006, a 23% increase over year-ago third quarter net subscriber additions.
I am taking more interest in news about Sirius after I became a subscriber myself a bit over a month ago. It’s good to see that the number of subscribers is increasing. I wonder how many of these subscribers are there for Howard Stern and then how many have other reasons. Myself, I just wanted to be able to listen to a lot of stuff and wasn’t really satisfied with the offerings found on terrestrial radio these days.
Sirius Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) stock shot up in early morning trading to 4.15 from a close yesterday of 4.00.
On September 24th The Who will have their own station on Sirius Satellite Radio. It will feature nightly broadcasts of concerts from their current tour as well as backstage information and historic concerts. This station will be a welcome addition to Sirius by all of The Who fans. If you have Sirius make sure to take a listen as this is only going to be available for a limited time. Pete Townshend was quoted at Sirius as saying, “this is the most exciting thing I can imagine … our own radio channel, straight to our fans.” Shares of Sirius Satellite Radio stock (SIRI) jumped from 4.02 to 4.12 with the announcement.
AMD, the cpu maker, bought out ATI, the graphics card maker, for $5.4 Billion dollars. Overall, the deal will result in a very powerful company that should be able to beat Intel. AMD should be able to create more powerful integrated chipsets and a more complete package. On the other hand, there is one less Canadian company, and a more powerful American company in its place.
The interesting news from today was the governments budget. It talked about taxes cuts and tax credits. I’m sure that I’ll be able to take advantage of both and be able to save myself some money. This take about money got me thinking. Why am I still buying stuff from Canada? Today one American dollar was worth 90.7 cents Canadian. The most interesting thing about this is if I were to go to the United States and buy stuff, and come back to Canada I could save myself some money. I’ll use the Creative Zen Vision M as an example: On Walmart.com’s webpage the price is $282.72 USD, meanwhile on Futureshop.ca’s webpage the same item is $379.99 CDN. If we convert the American price to Canadian using today’s rates we will see that the price is in fact around $312. This would save me $68. Almost as much as it would cost me in gas for the trip down. Now all I need to do is make a list of things I need to buy and get down there and go shopping. Can anyone say, “Roadtrip” ?