The rumor probably won't come true, but it has a few believers

May 2, 2013 08:17 GMT  ·  By

We doubt Intel will ever buy Advanced Micro Devices, not just because of the long-standing rivalry between the two, but also because that would give Intel a monopoly on the CPU industry, and there are regulations against that.

Nevertheless, a person speaking to the Tech Trader Daily blog (identity unknown) says that Intel will buy AMD because the field of computing is more broadly defined now.

“Although the rumor is not a new one, it is in circulation again today,” the source is quoted as saying.

Previously, it was impossible for a merger between Intel and AMD to be permitted, but that was because there was no alternative to x86 in the field of PCs and data centers.

Now that ARM is successfully infiltrating these fields, however slowly, the danger of a monopoly is diminishing.

Thus, with a third player in the game, Intel buying Advanced Micro Devices would no longer result in a monopoly.

It's also worth noting that, on the media tablet front, both Intel and AMD had some success, but not that much. They are stagnating now, even dropping in relevance as stronger ARM CPUs appear (Tegra 4, Samsung Exynos, etc.).

What's more, Intel and AMD have some resources and ideas that could lead to great things if combined.

AMD's graphics processing and heterogeneous processing intellectual property plus Intel's top-tier manufacturing capacities and technologies would be a winning team any day.

On the flip side, Advanced Micro Devices has been making more money than before, having been chosen as the only supplier of custom system-on-chips for Microsoft Xbox Infinity (Xbox Next console code-named Durango) and Sony PlayStation 4 (code-named Orbis). The game consoles will arrive later this year and should provide lots of cash.

Coupled with the resentment that may have lingered from the antitrust lawsuits of a few years back, all this weighs against the possibility of an acquisition.