Hello Allen,
First off, let me thank you for sharing all of your hard work and research with us. By total luck, I stumbled across this thread about 3-4 months ago; your thoughtful analysis has kept me coming back. I haven't bought any yet (wish I had!), but am getting closer to it as my own research on this company seems to confirm what you say.
Anyway, on to WIND stuff:
Regarding your table of projected EPS figures, a couple of questions. (not meant as criticisms, just trying to understand more about the embedded systems market, which is a new area to me).
1) The embedded microprocessor market is growing rapidly. But how many of these embedded systems are complicated enough that they actually need a RTOS?
2) As hardware technology advances, will the trend be that more and more of the smarts will built into the hardware, eventually obviating the need for software on the chip?
3) If the market grows at the aggressive end of your table (100% plus), then I would suspect that more competitors will enter the market. Does your table assume WIND's market share over time increasing, decreasing, staying the same?
I sent an e-mail to an Intel IR person trying to find out info on projections of how many i960RP's they thought they'd ship in coming years, still awaiting a reply.
Also, a question I asked over on the Intel board of SI yielded an e-mail reply from an Intel employee who confirmed what you said that the i960RP will be incorporated on the motherboard. He also said that the first I2O compliant motherboard (a dual Pentium Pro processor system) was announced by TMC on 6/4/96, and uses an i960RP processor. So, the revenue stream is starting for WIND!
Regards,
Jim |