Imagination Tech Shares Plunge as Apple Ends Deal With British Firm

[coolfactor]

They poached the employees instead. Way cheaper.

Is it a cheap shot? Yeah

I don't see it as a cheap shot, because they gave plenty of notice. Imagination themselves stated:

The firm said that Apple's notification had triggered talks on alternative commercial arrangements for the current license and royalty agreement.​

So it's clear that Imagination executives were living it good with Apple's supply of money, and now they actually need to do some work to grow their business. They should have been doing that all along, not relying on Apple to pad their pockets.

 

[Andres Cantu]

AnandTech suggests that within 15-24 months, Apple won't be able to sell products with A8-A10 chips (and even A11 chips if they contain Imagination GPUs). That could be interesting...

 

[Zwopple]

I don't see it as a cheap shot, because they gave plenty of notice. Imagination themselves stated:

The firm said that Apple's notification had triggered talks on alternative commercial arrangements for the current license and royalty agreement.​

So it's clear that Imagination executives were living it good with Apple's supply of money, and now they actually need to do some work to grow their business. They should have been doing that all along, not relying on Apple to pad their pockets.

Exactly, it's surprising they didn't see this coming given how Apple has an ever growing silicon team that is heavily invested in creating custom designs for their needs, given the CPU platform for Apple has matured a bit it only seems natural they would do it to the GPU's as well.

 

[gaanee]

It's possible that this year's iPhone will include Apple's custom GPU, and that 2 years notice is for continued use in 6S and 7 which most likely will still be available in the market

 

[drewsof07]

It is unusual for Apple to make such a statement about its future plans since they're talking about a couple of years.
And I don't understand why they didn't buy the company since they have plenty of cash. If they're building a custom GPU from the ground up they're going to need a lot of expertise, since they are already stakeholder of Imagination why don't just buy more stocks and acquire the company with all its patents and employees?

They might, now that the price is low enough

 

[tipoo]

Yowza, this is a big deal. I had always thought Apple was capable of this, but like Imagination is saying, I figured they kept Imagination around for the patents. I wonder if they can create a ground up GPU without infringing on any of the many GPU makers patents, at this point in time.

Or what if they licensed patents from AMD or something, that could also be interesting.

Or buy Imagination now that the stock has plunged

 

[Gasu E.]

I understand that, but I thought those kind of communication between companies were confidential and not made public.

I don't know how things work in the UK; but for US-listed publicly traded companies, it is a legal requirement that they disclose business events that are germane to the value of their stock.

 

[69Mustang]

Apple is smart with money, they don't frivolously spend it just because they have it.

They make good and bad decisions, like any other company. For every AuthenTec there's a GT Advance.

If someone tries to overvalue or overprice Apple just because they are Apple, Apple will then take a step back.

Is this an implication that Imagination tried to gouge Apple or are you just throwing out a "what if"? Regardless, it's wrong. Apple didn't a step back from Qualcomm for years, and Qualcomm was gouging the entire industry. Still is in some circles. Intel may help with that now, but that wasn't always the case.

Apple is a company. Just like other companies.

 

[gnasher729]

so, this would mean then Apple is willing to violate their patents...

okey-dokie.... We know how well that turns out.

Not at all. You seem to not have read my previous post: They want evidence that Apple isn't using their patents, when obviously Apple is _right now_ using their patents _and paying for them_.

 

[the8thark]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11243/apple-developing-custom-gpu-dropping-imagination

Here is a very good write up of this and what it might mean for more Apple designed hardware.

 

[gobikerider]

I understand that, but I thought those kind of communication between companies were confidential and not made public.
As an example we read rumours about Samsung or TSMC manufacturing the next SoC, but we don't have official statements from Apple about that kind of things.

Yah but this is different as this partnership was essentially 50% of Imaginations revenue

 

[Cole Slaw]

Tim Cook only wants tech companies to exist in China.
He's a bastard that way...

 

[gobikerider]

Apple is out there to rule the world, not cooperate with anyone. Bad luck, other companies!

They buy plenty of companies

 

[Zarniwoop]

Each CPU design is different, and costs itself . So think that Apple for A8, A9, A10 CPU had to pay like around 140-150 000 000 USD on each design alone. It is not peanuts .

210 million iPhones per year... shared with two or three generations of SoC's. Every year. So, eventually every iteration of Axx family will have hundrers of millions of copies.

Current A10 is already pointing to the future... there are two different kinds of CPU cores... one for low-power use and second for performance use. How about in a near future there's going to be also x86 cores in the same SoC. Then it's up to a BIOS to decide which cores will be active during a boot. And OS to decide how they're used.

This way Apple could solve a lot of problems, standardise their SoC offering, and make a lot more profit.

 

[gnasher729]

Imagination DOES NOT build chips. They only design IP, just like ARM. Companies later license it, and pay the manufacturing costs of it, but the design costs are consumed by Imagination.

Cost of Designing, validating, implementing, and manufacturing. All adds up to the number you quoted. Apple previously only had implementing and Manufacturing costs in their Chips.

And we are supposed to believe that the cost of designing a graphics chip is $270 million. That would be the cost "consumed by Imagination" when Apple pays them $65 million a year. Doesn't quite add up, does it?

 

[Zarniwoop]

Cheaper yes but not $30, Intel makes CPU's for all computers, if Apple makes their own it will cost them more per CPU than Intel makes them.

True. That's why Apple has educated their Mac audience, that there will be updates less frequently.

Also, the future could be that there are both ARM and x86 cores on the same Soc. With same R&D, same SoC could be used both in iOS and macOS devices. And actually, even Intels x86 processors are based on Risc technology and x86 is run on top of if. Why couldn't Apple do the same? All they need is a license for x86 and AMD has it. So they need to ally with AMD to reach that goal. The same way as MS with Xbox and Sony with PS4 did.

 

[tipoo]

I wonder if the GPU could start on mobile and make its way to the Mac, now that would be more interesting.

 

[thasan]

This is fascinating news, although understandably upsetting for Imagination Technologies as a company.
It'll be really interesting to see what Apple has up their sleeves graphics wise. To dump Imagination they must (better) have something pretty amazing in the pipeline.

The one danger I could see for Apple here is that, as everyone knows, Imagination has made the best graphics chips in the mobile space for as long as anyone can remember now, and up until this point Apple has had almost exclusive access to their latest designs (barring some exceptions like the Playstation Vita). This virtual monopoly has given the iPhone/iPad a huge edge over the competition. But now that Imagination knows they're going to be dumped, I imagine they'll be looking to diversify.

While Apple's eventual chip may have a performance edge, if Imagination chips start showing up more in Android phones and tablets, this could seriously erode Apple's lead in GPU performance, and create a situation where Apple's performance is better, but no longer to such an extreme degree.

I also wonder what this means for Apple's overall longterm business (including the Mac). Apple's put a lot of money into developing their own in house CPU and now GPU tech, but they have to know that the smart phone market, particularly, the high end of the market, is nearing saturation in many parts of the world. Where does Apple see the kind of growth potential that warrants all of this investment...

uhu... apple are looking to build custom GPUs for their AR/VR.
I think it is a perfectly logical move. and looks like it has been timed very well too!
2 years for a fully functional AR/VR headset/glass/mobile from Apple?
yep!

 

[azentropy]

Seems like an awful lot of work just to save $70M or so a year in licensing fees. They will probably pay a good amount of that for lawyers to defend the patent infringement cases.

 

[thasan]

It is not that stupid idea. You have to bare in mind that current state of Imagination Technologies top of the line model of the GPU would be extremely capable of competing with PS4 GPU.

P.S. Here is David Kanter's take on Apple custom GPU: http://www.realworldtech.com/apple-custom-gpu/

Before mac, GPUs for mobile "systems" are more likely.

 

[Max Portakabin]

One can always argue it was a **** move of Apple to poach the employees and then leave the company to shrivel away, but it was of course way cheaper and we have no idea, perhaps the CEO was impossible to work with or something.

What is for sure though is that for every empty company carcass that Apple leaves behind after just eating them up and spitting out the remains, some companies might actually get second thoughts about working with Apple. Sure, in the short run, they might make loads of money, but in the long run, the companies might go belly up when Apple leaves them after poaching all the employees and knowledge.
It might actually hurt Apple that they seem very reluctant to buy companies they've worked with for years. Someday some company with vital technology might decline to work with Apple due to the risk of being "destroyed".

It's crap behaviour and if Samsung did it we'd hear no end of abuse for them.

 

[gobikerider]

I wonder if the GPU could start on mobile and make its way to the Mac, now that would be more interesting.

Apple would have to drop intel as well I don't see that happening

 

[RH00D]

Remember that Apple, Google, Facebook and others had to pay a major fine (9 digits) because they were caught having an agreement NOT to poach employees from each others. So obviously poaching employees is absolutely fine and expected behaviours. I wouldn't mind being offered a much higher salary from a competitor.

Well I think it should be noted that the reason they had the agreement not to poach employees was to suppress wages. I think it depends on a case by case basis. If you poach employees as a tactic to hollow out and essentially destroy a company then that might be different.

 

[gobikerider]

Seems like an awful lot of work just to save $70M or so a year in licensing fees. They will probably pay a good amount of that for lawyers to defend the patent infringement cases.

I think they will just make a new agreement with Apple to prevent infringement so I'd imagine a new payment of 5-10 million to avoid lawsuits and develop their own

 

[Wowereit]

But I'm sure it is their goal. With AMD's IP, they could come close creating a SoC, that is way cheaper than Intel's equivalent. Similarly what they've done with ARM's IP property.

They can't.
AMD isn't allowed to hand out x86 IP, they only licensed it from Intel and Intel made sure that there isn't any way for AMD to sell or re-license it.
Apple would need to provide their own IP to AMD, the other way around is impossible.