Before I read this article "The AMD Barcelona back story" (
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33847/128/) on TG Daily today I knew Lucasfilm used AMD processors in their data center and rendering farm but I didn't know why.
There were four talks that stood out and I’ll be addressing all four in this piece. The first was from the top operational executive at Lucas Films and he almost had tears in his eyes as he told how his relationship with AMD started.
According to him, early on they needed help (hard to imagine given they have nearly 70% of the market for high end movie computer generated graphics today) and went to Intel as the biggest player in the segment. Intel, evidently, after spending a lot of time looking at the business, basically blew them off and nicely said they really couldn’t help create the technology Lucas needed.
Had not AMD stepped in, the implication was that much of what we have seen come out of that company probably wouldn’t have ever existed without AMD and, as a result, Lucas won’t do business with Intel and indicated that was the case with their entire industry. An interesting piece of trivia I thought I worth sharing here. :) Of course I do wish Rob Enderle would realize that it's Lucasfilm, not "Lucas Films." :D