Hi Shumway; I didn't mean to direct my laughter over the OKI deal in your direction. I am laughing at the Rambus management for bothering to put out such an insignificant press release.
The other guys were laughing too. Only a couple of them were aware of OKI's ancient forays into the DRAM market place. I should mention that design engineers keep track of who is making parts suitable for current designs, not who is still making retired parts for the after market. A few of the old timers could remember when OKI actually made state of the art memory, but none of could remember what the brand looks like on a chip.
It may be possible that OKI has recently sold as much as a billion dollars worth of memory, but I would bet that the vast majority of their memory sales do not come under this royalty agreement. OKI mostly makes VRAM, EDO and FPM DRAM, field memories and line memories, all of which are quite obsolete and none of which is licensed by Rambus even in their wildest dreams.
Note that the stock hardly moved today on the news.
To truly prove that they have the patents down, Rambus needs to sign up Hyundai, Micron, and/or Infineon. Samsung would be less impressive, as they are the big supporter of RDRAM already.
DRAM has been going through a period of consolidation for years, and there are tons of these inconsequential manufacturers left over from the profitable days of the 80s and early 90s. Signing agreements with them doesn't mean squat. In the unlikely event that one of them ever decides to get back into the DRAM business, all they have to do is set up a joint operation like Hitachi did with NEC. Then Rambus has to negotiate a new license agreement with the new entity, but this time with the signers having a reason to go for a real deal.
So where are the big boys? Investors are saying that the big boys have to follow along eventually, but wouldn't it be logical that if a big company had more to lose they would have all the more reason for signing early and getting a discounted royalty rate? Where are they? So far, Rambus is simply generating empty press releases.
It doesn't hurt the big guys to have the short time players sign Rambus licenses on their way out the door. All it means is that the big guys have one less efficient competitor to worry about in the future. They are apparently not at all worried. Where are the Rambus lawsuits?
Again, apologies for my not making it clear that my response had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the news.
-- Carl |
