Hi Dr. Id; I was never "pro RMBS". After the Hitachi settlement, it became clear to me that this was a stock that could explode to the upside with great force - if they can collect royalties from the industry. But the Hitachi deal turned out to be nowhere near as sweet a deal for Rambus as was thought by readers of the press release that announced it.
The Hitachi deal turned out to be a very cheap way for Hitachi to get themselves out of a potentially very expensive lawsuit. Hitachi will get out of the SDRAM business in six months or so, and they will only have to pay SDRAM memory royalties for those six months. That is a tiny fraction of the amount of SDRAM that Hitachi has produced. The agreement was obviously a major bargain for them, if they believed, as I believe, that in the US courts, anything can happen.
What with Rambus blowing the Hitachi deal way out of proportion, there is now an even more pronounced tendency for readers of their press releases to look for the careful language that steps around the truth. I wouldn't say the Rambus people are liars, but it is clear that they have no desire to spread knowledge about the way things are. They're master PR spinners.
You know, one of the things I've noticed as I've grown older and seen more of the world, is that people who are in positions of weakness tend to be the ones that shade the truth the most. (All else being equal.) People who are operating from a position of strength just use their strength, they don't have to talk about it. Rambus has been talking very strong, but acting very weak recently, what with the Hitachi and OKI deals, so I'm beginning to doubt the strength of their patents.
-- Carl |
