Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Transmeta’s wild ride is apparently coming to a end — having given up the chip game entirely in favor of lucrative patent licensing deals, it sounds like the company’s board is tired of being called out by investors and looking to sell off what’s left, saying it’s a way to “enhance value for all its stockholders.” Considering that AMD owns a $7.5M chunk of stock and most of Transmeta’s tech is already licensed out to NVIDIA and Intel, those seem like they’d be likely suitors, but you never know with these guys — we’ll see how this all plays out in the end.

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Filed under: Gaming

A select bunch of Transmeta investors may not completely agree with how the outfit is being managed, but one thing’s for sure: it’s bringing in some serious coin on this deal. During a brief timeout from counting those stacks of Benjamins handed over by Intel, it decided to license its Long Run and LongRun 2 technologies (among “other intellectual property”) to NVIDIA for a cool $25 million. Additionally, the agreement grants NVIDIA a “non-exclusive and fully paid-up license” to all of Transmeta’s patents and patent applications. Unfortunately, it’s still unclear how exactly this will end up affecting NVIDIA fanboys (and girls), but we’ll go out on a limb and suggest that a mobile GTX 280 with a remarkably low power draw is just around the bend.

[Via SlashGear]

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

We thought Transmeta was back on track after settling that patent lawsuit with Intel and scoring a $7.5M investment from AMD, but it looks like the company’s investors aren’t as convinced — they’ve filed a lawsuit accusing Transmeta of mismanagement and have offered to buy the whole company outright. Led by investment firm Riley Investments, which owns nearly seven percent of Transmeta, the lawsuit claims that Transmeta executives have been giving themselves huge unwarranted bonuses while failing to manage the company effectively — the latest example being the general counsel getting a $10M bonus while the company posted a profit of just $44,000. That’s definitely pretty sketchy, but even worse is Riley’s plan if it does manage to take over: killing off Transmeta’s manufacturing operations and turning the company into a patent troll. Either way, we should find out which drain Transmeta’s going down rather soon — we’ll keep you updated.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Looks like it’s all hugs and kisses and millions of dollars in licensing fees for Intel and Transmeta after all, as the two companies finalized a settlement agreement in their year-long patent dispute today. The agreement calls for Intel to license Transmeta’s patents for $150M upfront and $20M a year for the next five years, and Intel can’t do anything except pout if Transmeta decides to license its LongRun tech to any other company at the same time. That’s a fun little chunk of change for Transmeta, which was about to get de-listed from the NASDAQ back in March before turning things around — and getting a $7.5M vote of confidence from AMD. No word on how the company plans to serve its two competing masters, but it’s got to feel nice to be wanted.

[Thanks, Jon]

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