S3 (Multimedia semi's place 2be) Message Board

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Technology Stocks : S3 (Multimedia semi's place 2be)

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May 12 5:00 PM EST

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To: Jonathan Quick who wrote (8194)	3/10/1997 2:23:00 PM
From: John McGregor	of 9477

Jonathan, I agree with your assessment of S3's lack of announcements/sampling of an AGP graphic controller. I said six months ago that they had better say something quick or OEMs would go elsewhere. This is not the immediate death of S3 though. S3 still has time to recover but they have to come out with the right solution. The AGP will not work its way into too many systems in this calendar year (my opinion). The motherboard will have to have AGP support on board. It can not be done in an add-in card (let me know if I am wrong here) or it would defeat its purpose of bypassing the PCI bus. Therefore, we will not see significant or even minor sales until 1998 at the earliest. The short term sales are still S3's which will translate into EPS. Don't forget there is a large base of ViRGE customers shipping product right now. The long term outlook does not look so rosy today. The TRID win at Diamond could hurt the mainstream add-in board sales in 1998. Keep in mind that this is sales to new computer owners who have AGP support on the motherboard. The installed base of computers without AGP who are looking to upgrade will still purchase products like the PCI Daimond 3000XL (which I own and its awesome). The real winner will be the accelerator company selected for the motherboard implementation of video acceleration. This is the way all the main PC manufacturers are going -- video acceleration on the motherboard. This only makes sense with AGP. With all that said here is my assessment of what needs to occur. With this win at a main add-in board supplier S3 has two to three months to release their AGP product with full support of the specification. Look what happened to Cirrus with their AGP release. It was rushed to market without supporting the specification and I don't think I have seen any major wins yet. This is what TRID did right. They provided support for best part of the specification (it would be nice if someone in the know could comment if they left anything out - Rob S?). Hopefully, the release of the product would be coupled with a design win at the motherboard level. Just my opinion. John

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