Gene,
Fascinating article. I clipped a short section (AND HAS ANYONE SEEN THE ANNOUNCEMENT REFERRED TO THAT DELL WOULD START SHIPPING A $1200 RDRAM-BASED COMPUTER???!!!!)
Peck adds that Rambus either wins the battle to become the next memory chip used in most personal computers or it doesn?t. The outcome, he says, won?t be determined for at least another 12 to 18 months.
"The chat boards are going to be filled over the next year with people arguing both sides," Peck says. Ain't it the truth!"So we can expect more rancor between now and then. Personally, if I were a Rambus investor, I?d go and spend my money in Vegas, where the odds are about the same and at least you?d have a good time."
But, like any big gamble, there are eager players on both sides.
Jim Handy, DRAM analyst at Dataquest, based in San Jose, Calif., for example, says he thinks there is little chance competing DRAM makers are ever going to agree on a design scheme for memory chips.
"There have been at least three previous similar consortiums, and none of them have ever turned out anything useful," Handy says. "It?s highly likely this new consortium will fall into that same trap."
Handy says that the complex process of designing memory chip architectures isn?t suited to work by a committee.
"An autocrat can always make things happen faster than a committee can," Handy adds. "That advantage belongs to Rambus. "
What?s more, Handy predicts that Rambus will make good progress in the marketplace over the coming months that will put it in position for its designs to be accepted for future iterations of DRAM chips.
There are some indications that could be beginning to happen. This week, for example, Dell Computer Corp. {DELL} announced that it will begin selling a Rambus-equipped PC for less than $1,200, about half the price of the first high-end PCs containing Rambus?s more-powerful memory chips that hit the last year. Other PC makers are expected to follow suit with lower cost units, now that Rambus chips are becoming more available in the market.
"If everything goes well for Rambus and they do dominate the current generation they will have the upper hand for the next generation," Handy says. "Rambus understands the heck out of this stuff. They?ve already tried a lot of things the consortium probably hasn?t even thought of yet. I don?t think the consortium has gone down all the roads Rambus has gone down. You can bet your bottom dollar Rambus is already working on the next best thing. To me, it all looks very positive for Rambus."
Thanks, Gene
Dave |
