Despite the firm's official line, according to ex-employees interviewed by Forbes, the purchase of ATI by AMD was not the beginnings of a match made in heaven.
The employees confirmed the long-held belief that AMD in fact first approached NVIDIA over a buyout back in 2006, looking to achieve a technical edge over rival, Intel. The deal fell through, however, as the two firms could not come to terms, with NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, insisting on becoming CEO of the combined company.
Ironically, the then CEO of AMD, Hector Ruiz, who was unwilling to give up his place, subsequently resigned two years later and quit the firm completely after three, after seeing the company post losses in the billions under his oversight; with the purchase of ATI taking much longer than expected to bear fruit, closing the window on an early lead in on-die GPU technology over Intel.
The way tables have turned today, there's now more chance of NVIDIA buying out AMD, with the firm worth over £2.8 billion more than AMD on the market.
Stay tuned, as it turns out our ex-employees have loose lips, including details of more recent events.
