Don:
Number Nine's bankruptcy lead to problems for Pixelfusion to deliver RMBS based video cards. Sometimes you think that RMBS really is a lot of hot air and no real serious prospects.
I will make up my mind finally about RMBS if Compaq Workstation AP550 fails to be delivered to channel partners as expected on Dec 29 and VC820 motherboards fail to be delivered to distributors the week of 1/7/2000.
ebns.com
S3 seeking assets of troubled graphics house Number Nine
By Mark Hachman
Electronic Buyers' News
(12/21/99, 08:59:37 AM EDT)
Graphics-chip maker S3 Inc. said it will buy the assets of Number Nine Visual Technology Corp., the graphics-card manufacturer and S3 customer that filed for bankruptcy yesterday.
Number Nine's business, which includes a card-manufacturing operation and about 70 employees, was assessed at $4.8 million by a U.S. bankruptcy court in Massachusetts.
The deal would finally bring an end to the company's struggle to sustain itself first as a chip manufacturer and later as a distributor of S3 silicon. In its day, Number Nine, Lexington, Mass., enjoyed a close supplier relationship with IBM Corp., a tie that became redundant when S3 began servicing IBM with its card manufacturing subsidiary, Diamond Multimedia.
A spokesman for S3, Santa Clara, Calif., said yesterday the company will move to acquire Number Nine's assets to streamline its distribution model to a single source. A bankruptcy judge has yet to approve the offer.
"[Number Nine] was a contract supplier for us, while IBM was also working with us," the spokesman said. "But Nine was also contract-manufacturing boards for [sale to] IBM. It was the one anomaly in our OEM roadmap."
Number Nine's legacy dates back to before the days when companies like S3 and ATI Technologies Inc. captured the bulk of the design wins for 3D-graphics accelerators. Although its business model, which combined graphics-chip and board operations, would later be mimicked by most other graphics silicon vendors-including S3-the company was paralyzed by strategic errors, such as failing to support Microsoft Corp.'s DirectX interface.
And while it scored design wins with IBM and powered the American Broadcasting Company's (ABC) Times Square billboard, Number Nine was unable to drum up additional funding, said Wallace Smith, the company's president and chief executive officer. In fact, Number Nine's most recent decision to partner with PixelFuzion Ltd. in designing FUZION 150-based boards for workstations also appears to be in jeopardy thanks to the bankruptcy proceedings.
"Number Nine truly has mixed emotions about this transaction," Smith said in a statement. "On the one hand, we are deeply disappointed in not being able to complete our turnaround efforts and preserve or create value for the stockholders.
"We have made great strides in our turnaround efforts during the last nine months. But in our opinion, the current liability situation was just too much to overcome. I am pleased that we will be able to repay a significant portion of the outstanding liabilities and that S3 will be given the opportunity to continue to serve and support our customers around the world," he said
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