Second Hand Smoke - Hominis est errare

I said all kinds of nice things about THAT company, scooped the May PC Data figures, and still got flamed. Thank heavens for S3's acquisition of Diamond.

I owe a big debt of gratitude to S3 for choosing this week, of all weeks, to announce the acquisition of Diamond Multimedia. It's time to move on from THAT company. I dare not utter its name for fear of getting any more pathetic e-mail. As a rule, I try and answer every e-mail I get, and that can mean long nights of sitting at a keyboard, especially since I put Second Hand Smoke on Tom's Hardware. However, despite having been pleasant, albeit skeptical, about THAT company, having apologized for inadvertently using some corrupted data, through no fault of my own, AND despite having scooped the world with preliminary May figures from PC Data, my e-mail account will probably be withdrawn by my ISP for abnormal and excessive use, beyond the bounds of common decency. So, yeah, I am glad that S3 can get me far away from THAT company.

Did I say this? It's just a graphics board, people.

S3 acquiring Diamond was a surprise. I didn't think S3 would beat Nvidia to the vertical integration punch, but they did. Diamond has been a candidate for acquisition, merger, or plain old sale, for some time, since they first talked to THAT company, in fact. Obviously, Nvidia has been reticent about the board business, I think mostly because, the company's CEO just doesn't like the idea of being in the messy graphics board melee. So, in to the fray jumps S3, with a keen eye on outplaying ATI at its own game. However, one thing about this deal is intriguing, S3/Diamond doesn't look like the best match. For instance, I don't think S3 is going to shut the supply lines to its Asian customers, or other board OEMs. Because S3 is not setting itself up as the performance, or technological leader, it and its partners can afford to co-exist happily for some time to come. The acquisition of Diamond will not be complete until October, and therefore, we'll probably see S3 based products from a variety of sources well into 2000. Right there, we have the makings of a long playing saga. By contrast, the mergers of other chip and board companies have been very clear cut.