How confident are you that the Memory Cabal can't find a way around Rambus's old patent? With the apparent loss of support from Intel, that may be their only ongoing revenue stream.
In the foreseeable future, very confident. I don't know if it is as lock solid as Q's CDMA patents, but as of this time there is not a commercially viable mass market memory technology, nor one in any stage of planning even talked about for the next 5 years, that does not seem to violate RMBS patents. Besides DDR which was designed to by-pass RMBS patents (not), DDR-II is talked about, but this technology is similarly based on S-DRAM technology which falls under RMBS patents, and this next generation of DDR technology is not even due to begin design until 2003 or 2004.
So the answer again is quite confident for the foreseeable future. One never knows what surprises the world can throw at you. For example Wi-lan and Phillips have managed to move W-OFDM technology onto one ASIC and are now moving to place it onto one CMOS chip. Currently W-OFDM technology consumes far too much power to be a competitive technology in cellular phones. However, and AT&T has discussed this in white papers, W-OFDM is far more bandwidth efficient than is the most efficient CDMA technologies, and the perfect complement to EDGE in either 3G or 4G technology. Other posters may remember this discussion some time back (either on this board or on several others). Who is to say that a great leap forward in W-OFDM technology is not made in the next year or two, creating not only a competing technology, but one with 25-50x more bandwidth? It could happen. Very doubtful, but it could. The same is the case with DRAM technology. There is nothing competitive on the horizon or seriously talked about, but who knows what technological leap can be made from out of nowhere.
But I should have added the addendum that I usually add(since most people on the thread are not pure gorilla gamers, many are more aggressive many respects) is that for conservative gorilla gamers you should wait for the litigation resolution for buying in. Although I know I have stated this in previous posts.
And Geoffrey Moore did state in the field manual that some more aggressive, or experienced investors may buy in at earlier stages to take advantage of the early run-up (or something to that effect) but in general that the more conservative approach is more appropriate for the majority of gorilla game investors.
And since I note that Geoffrey Moore has taken a position in Rambus, I'm not going to argue the merits when the author himself not only mentioned Rambus as a possible gorilla several years ago, but has also acted on that viewpoint with his own money not long ago.
With the apparent loss of support from Intel
There is no apparent loss of INTC. If you look closely at all the press releases over the last 6 months, INTC's position is that RDRAM has not fallen as fast in price as it expected. INTC clearly states that RDRAM is the best DRAM for high-end computers but that it will provide a DDR alternative. INTC has stated at either a conference call, or conference or such, that the release of a DDR chip may never even happen if the cost of RDRAM were to come down further.
A quote from an INTC press release (paraphrased because it is from memory, I read it this morning from amongst 100s of posts, - I'll try to find it tomorrow night and post the article but this paraphrase is darn close) "all of our chips will be designed to work optimally with RDRAM." The optimal part is verbatim to the best of my memory. INTC will provide the option to use DDR basically because economics dicates that course at this time. They have not abandoned RDRAM, they still emphatically prefer RDRAM just as QCOM prefers CDMA2000 but may end up settling for a mix of W-CDMA, or DDR in this case..
Imagine what this means to DELL. So INTC, you give us RDRAM chips, and then send a message to the DRAM industry to stop investing in the technology? Gee, thanks INTC. This is emphatically not what INTC is doing.
But, irregardless, my comment on the merit and strength of Rambus' 90+ patents, and growing, stands. Maybe an electrical engineer can describe for us how the DRAM industry could design around all of these Rambus patents. From what I understand (again I'm not an engineer) that Rambus' patents are fundamental to the way memory technology functions today.
One other thing. RMBS has the best cash flow characteristics of any company we are ever likely to see (even Gemstar). RMBS is not standing still. They will have an enormous war chest to expand and invest with.
Tinker |
