Intel talking trash about Rambus:
e-insite.net
Rambus Was A Mistake, Says Intel’s Barrett...
By Steven Fyffe and Paul Kallender, Electronic News
Oct 18, 2000 --- It was a bitter-sweet day for Rambus Inc., Mountain View,
Calif., with the announcement of record earnings overshadowed by harsh words
from Craig Barrett, Intel Corp.’s president and chief executive officer.
“We made a big bet on Rambus and it did not work out,” Barrett told Financial
Times at the eXCHANGE e-Business Summit in San Francisco last week. “In
retrospect, it was a mistake to be dependent on a third party for a technology
that gates your performance.”
Barrett also took a swipe at Rambus’ campaign to extract royalties from DRAM
makers for SDRAM and DDR memory technology that competes with Rambus’
own direct RDRAM. “We hoped we were partners with a company that would
concentrate on technology innovation rather than seeking to collect a toll from
other companies," he said.
Analysts said Barrett’s words had a ring of finality to them. “It’s pretty much
the kiss of death,” said Bill McLean, president of IC Insights. “When Intel’s
backing goes away, Rambus is really in big trouble.”
Rambus stock survived Barrett’s negative comments, buoyed by a record fourth
quarter earnings announcement. Revenues for the quarter hit $26.9 million, up
52 percent from the previous quarter.
Barrett said Intel would “let the market decide” whether or not it wanted
RDRAM, earlier in the year at the Intel Developers Forum. It looks like the
market has decided, said Bob Merritt, director of emerging markets at Semico
Research Corp. “This comment is a natural follow on,” Merritt said. “Intel is
obviously unhappy.”
Others interpreted Barrett’s comments to mean that Intel had failed rather than
Rambus. “I would say Craig is probably right,” said Steve Cullen, an analyst
with Cahners In-Stat Group. “He didn’t say it was the wrong technology. Intel
tried to execute it in a way where they did not have control.”
Intel threw money at the technology, but didn’t focus on developing,
assembling, manufacturing and testing, Cullen said.
Despite the disparaging comments, Intel is locked in to using Rambus
technology, at least until 2003, said Bert McComas, founder and principal
analyst at InQuest. “All this blood is over the walls and everybody including Intel
is suffering and Intel comes out and says the Rambus strategy has failed, but we
can’t do anything about it. We can’t engineer our way out of a paper bag.
“If you can see that it’s a failed strategy now, what is keeping you from pulling
out? Of course, their answer is that they have contractual obligations.”
Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. announced today it had amended its
complaint against Rambus pending in the United States District Court in San
Jose and was seeking treble damages from the Mountain View, Calif.-based
company.
It is also asking the courts to step in and offer “injunctive relief” for Rambus’
violation of antitrust laws, as well as an order from the Court that certain
Rambus patents are invalid, unenforceable, and not infringed by any Hyundai
products.
In the amended complaint, Hyundai Electronics U.K., Ltd. of Surrey, United
Kingdom, and Hyundai Electronics Deutschland GmbH of Raunheim, Germany,
have joined the action as co-plaintiffs. |
