I read a very interesting article about this a couple weeks ago when it was all still just rumor. It laid out a great case why this was good for not only AMD and ATI, but Intel and nVidia also.
It will be interesting to see how this will all play out, but I for one at least am optomistic.
If this were the case, do you think that there would be an AMD/ATI/Microsoft vs. Intel/nVidia/Apple war ahead?
Apple and Intel have already teamed up, and AMD and Microsoft worked closely on the Athlon XP.
It seems like if this happened, then we'd be headed for fragmentation in the PC market and eventually incompatibility between hardware.
Sure, x86 compatibility would remain, but in the future it might end up being a "VHS vs. Beta" all over again.