Rambus is in a bit of a "caught the lion by the tail" position with regard to DDR royalties. If they negotiate a deal with the (big) memory houses that gives them much less than 1% royalties on DDR, they risk angering their shareholders, who've had the moon promised (or at least implied) to them. On the other hand, if they insist on the big royalties they give plenty of reason for the big memory houses to contest the patents or go for the FTC.
Because of this problem, I predict that Rambus will have to sue for royalties from Micron, Samsung, Infineon,and Hyundai. (In other words, I think it is unlikely that these companies will sign lucrative royalty agreements without a fight.) After the stuff gets in the legal system, God only knows what will happen to it.
NOW THIS is the kind of thing I was trying to ring out of you and Zeev yesterday. This is truly the Mother of All Rocks & Hard Places. In my admittedly limited experience this type of mess simply doesn't happen in a free market.
When competition determines a products market share this kind of thing can't occur. Without INTC's interjection, RDRAM is DOA, like it was for a decade before INTC plucked it from the gutter and anointed it as the Heir to The Throne. Assuming this "standalone" RMBS could have mustered the application fees for SDRAM/DDR patents, without the perceived "value" of INTC's association, any of 20 different companies would have simply bought them out years ago.
Even if RAMBus was the total invention of INTC, or if INTC had done the honorable AND CUSTOMARY thing and bought them out instead of fronting for their squeeze play, this kind of conundrum could not have occurred. They'd have wasted our money for a few years and found a way to gracefully withdraw the stuff from the market.
If RMBS was a CPU, INTC would be issuing a recall and promising a refund. But due to their remarkable business acumen, the problem they created is apparently far too large for such an honorable solution.
They will whine about their market share losses to AMD and Via to date. But that won't save their face. And it's not going to restore their credibility. They will not be able to paper over this booboo. Too many people on the design floor and in management offices have been hurt by it. They have confirmed the worst fears of the most paranoid conspiracy theorists.
I think this is potentially the biggest boondoggle the industry has ever known. If it isn't settled and it does break down into the "Litigation From Hell", the target of opportunity will shift from RMBS to INTC. And if so the long run costs to INTC could easily far outweigh the cost of buying out RMBS.
Yes, I know they are huge and Big Business assumes they are God's first born. But that is no more than a "Titanic" assumption and mere perception. INTC's chips are NOT indispensable. There are if anything, too many companies out there waiting to pick their bones.
If for no other reason than that, INTC will be willing to "contribute" to the pot to buy off RMBS. Its entirely possible that some industry "Joint Venture" will be formed to develop the next memory technology. There first order of business will be to decide that it has to have the World Class EE's at RMBS and that a buy out is the most efficient means of acquiring them.
Of course there will have to be some further trimming of their market share price, based on sound fundamentals. We will know if this is the chosen solution if RMBS agrees to deminimus DDR/SDRAM IP payments, or caves in early on in an anti trust action in exchange for a guarantee of some limited DRDRAM production.
Without material IP payments from SDRAM the share price will drop like a rock. The guaranteed production would produce a bounce but it wouldn't last long once DDR/DDR2 benchmarks are widely available. Then the Joint Venture steps in, puts the parachute on Tate and the Terrorists, and promptly loses the key to the front gate.
It would take about a year, 18 months at the outside, to line up all the ducks, and remove the little monster from the playground. But it is definitely doable. ...Fortunately. All it takes is a few Big Men of good will. (Hee Hee:8)
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