Re: Yeah right. Remember those previews of K7
Huh, I thought the leaks about the K7 were quite favorable. Differenct perspectives I guess.
Well, if timna stays rambus only, rambus will be guaranteed a substantial volume (though what's guaranteed is nowhere near some of the estimates I've seen on this thread).
But then Intel will lose some sales and profits (both of which are areas currently with plenty of slack) since they'll have assumed a price penalty in an extremely price sensitive market.
I'd estimate Intel's rambus investment at about 1 to 2 billion dollars, including development costs for motherboards, chipsets, etc. and direct investments in Micron, and a few others.
Given that that's what they elected to advance initially, I'd expect them to accept up to that amount in additional unachieved profits. (After all, Intel is sitting on close to 2 billion in unrealized gains right now - 2 billion is a very acceptable cost).
If timna sales are 40 million, and intel has to absorb $50 per unit to stay competitive with SDRAM that's $2 billion. So I see it as a tossup - but those numbers are very, very vague. Do you have an Idea of what timna is expected to do in its first 18 months? I'm also guessing rambus adds $100 at retail, timna saves $20 at retail, and, everything else being equal, intel + rambus inside will be heavily marketed and end up being worth about $30 - even in a price sensitive market.
Can you suggest any changes to those numbers?
Dan |
