Mike:
>>>I don't know enough about set-top boxes to know if RDRAM would be used in it. Everything else you mentioned makes a lot of sense to me. If I wanted to invest in a mega-giant in consumer electronics, it would be insane not to give Sony a careful look.<<<
The reason I posted over the weekend about Sony wasn't so much to highlight Sony's strategic positioning in HDTVs, STBs, PCs, DVD and Playstation II Video Machines, but to call attention to the fact that all (I think) of these devices require memory.
To quote another threadmate, it's "hard to believe sony spent $1 billion (in partnership w/toshiba) earlier this year on rambus rdram production plant just for playstation II. There has to be something else going on here." The use of DRDRAM in other Sony products besides Playstation II is speculative, tho' from a business sense given there investment, it would seem worthy of consideration.
What isn't speculative is the fact that DRDRAM will appear in workstation and high-end PC products starting 4th Qtr, '99. At that point, the chasm is crossed for Rambus. The question will be how many alleys in the Bowling Alley are developed. We know about workstations/PCs & Video Games; looking very good should be notebook PCs and servers sometime by '00; speculative is high-end Printers, DVD, STBs, networking equipment & telecommunication devices.
We'll see. Rambus is all about bandwidth, just like CDMA. Any niche that requires Memory and Bandwidth is a candidate for Rambus DRAM. I raise this for the thread because I have been struck by the parallels between Rambus and other companies/issues/themes that have been discussed here.
Bandwidth: Qcom/CDMA, Rambus, JDSU
IP, fabless & high margins/royalties: Qcom, Gemstar, Rambus
Hope the thread doesn't mind my chipping in on Rambus stuff now and then. Not trying to make this a Rambus dominant thread. I want to contribute and this my way of doing so.
Best to all,
Stan |
