Carl,
Here are half the posts from "Dave B" which include the words "carl" and "wrong":
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Message 13623121
Dan,
Just read Carl's posts carefully, then concur or disagree, but don't get all hung up on who he is.
You've missed the point. On the one hand, I have Dataquest analysts who travel the world talking to memory manufacturers, systems designers, et cetera who say that RDRAM will be 75% of the market. On the other hand, we have Carl who says there are no new design wins and that it's dead-dead-dead.
The whole point is to try to give him a chance to establish his credibility with respect to the opinions he shares with the thread vis-a-vis the credibility of two gentlemen who have differing opinions. To do so, I want to know how connected he is in the industry -- does he meet with industry leaders at conferences, does he publish his research and have a number of people who pay him significant amounts of money for his opinions, is he respected enough in the industry to have his ideas published or patented. Or is he sitting in a little room in Seattle pontificating away. These first things are all things that Jim Handy and George Iwanyc at Dataquest do, and it makes their opinions and viewpoints of the market much, much more valuable than Carl's as things stand now. If Carl has this level of connectivity to the industry, I'd be happy to accord him the credibility associated with it.
Based on the feedback Handy and Iwanyc have received from the market, they project a 75% to 80% share of the market for RDRAM in a couple of years and niche status for DDR. This implies, for example, that Rambus will continue to have design wins. Since Carl disputes this statement, I'd like to know who he has spoken with to build this opinion. Does he meet with developer's in Silicon Valley? In New York? In Korea? The other gentlemen do, and include the feedback of these meetings in their estimates.
Unless Carl can show that he does have this kind of credibility, his opinions are meaningless in this area. Just the fact that he won't tell us the basics about himself, even simple stuff such as the college he attended, is telling in itself. What does he have to hide? In terms of weighing his feedback against recognized, connected industry analysts, so far his credibility is coming up short and his statements appear to be based on nothing more than the thoughts in his head -- certainly they don't seem to be based on any serious contact with the major players in the industry.
If you'd had even the most basic of physics and chemistry classes you'd be able to follow Carl's discussion. There is no "credibility" issue. This is science, engineering and reason - not who's who.
MIT required quite a bit of physics and chemistry. But you're wrong -- it's not about science, engineering, and reason (see my previous post to Ali about short-sighted engineers). It's about business and who's doing what behind the scenes. This is the stuff the Dataquest analysts get told in private meetings (having had these types of meetings with them myself). Carl does not appear to have any source in this area.
When Kennan wrote "The Sources of Soviet Conduct", he signed it "X" and let his arguments prove his point, not his name.
Who knows if "Carl Bilow" is his real name? Carl can argue all he wants, but when he makes statements like "no new design wins" and "dead-dead-dead", we have to understand what his sources are. Especially when we have well-connected analysts who dispute that.
Dave
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Message 11731629
Carl,
I've been forecasting product and company sales for almost 20 years and I've learned two things about forecasting:
1) Forecasts are always wrong.
2) If the forecasts are right, it's for the wrong reasons.
Just wanted to share that <G>.
Dave
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Message 13907771
Scumbria,
That is true. Investors realized that the fortunes of Rambus were tied to SDRAM and DDR, and not DRDRAM.
In other words, Carl was 100% dead on correct about DRDRAM. Why is everyone taking shots at Carl?
First, you're committing the same sin that Carl did -- saying that some event that hasn't happened yet is correct. No one, not you, not Carl, not me, not Stuart, no one knows whether RDRAM will have 0% or 50% market share in a couple of years, so no one is correct about anything when they predict its demise.
Second, is this the type of prediction that you think Carl is so correct about?
Message 13271931
Rambus is quite dead. It may have a few more twitches as it subsides into coma and decay, but its future is quite obvious. The shares have been largely shoved into the hands of mom and pop, and mom and pop may run the short interest, but in the end, the company is quite dead.
I know you think Carl has only been saying that RDRAM is dead, but that is extremely incorrect. He's been saying that the company is dead as well. And while I'm at it, you also said he didn't take personal shots, however I contend that all of his "mom and pop" quotes are incredibly insulting to all of us who believe this company has quite a future.
Carl has been wrong so many times I've lost count. You could pick a better idol.
Dave
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Message 15139882
Gene,
It's not perfect. Decisions made on current knowledge can prove wrong over time. On the other hand, what appears to some as bad decisions can prove right over time. And good organizations are adept at course corrections as new knowledge is acquired.
Excellent post. I've never met anyone who's been 100% right. But I've never met anyone who's good who hasn't been interested in getting all the data they possibly can to make the best decision they can.
And back to Carl's post, when the "underlings" try to shield things from the boss, from what I've seen it's usually their own mistakes they're trying to cover up. And the truth usually comes out anyway.
Dave
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Message 13908365
Scumbria,
I was wrong about there not being a way to engineer around the problem.
So there was a conflict, but you no longer believe one of your statements. Therefore, if there are ways around the patent, and the industry wants to fight this enough, it sounds as if they certainly can do it. But I'll stand by my statement that the industry is a lot more pragmatic than you and Carl and that they'll sign.
As for your car example, I can probably think of 50 ways to get out of the car, none of which involve a door (ejection seat, provide hydraulic lift of the car body but not the frame, put no door on the opening, etc., etc., etc.). And that only took 30 seconds. Of course, few of these are worth doing due to cost. If the industry can't come up with as many alternatives in 30 seconds that are cost-justifiable vis-a-vis the cost of the Rambus patents then the Rambus patents are probably pretty important.
Dave
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Message 15544733
Carl,
Hi Dave B; Actually, you guys are the ones completely focused on the lawsuit. Where are the claims that all roads lead to Rambus now?
We've had those discussions (remember the IDF where Intel reiterated their strong support for RDRAM? The announcements of reengineered RDRAM at lower costs? etc.?). Tonight's topic, no matter how much you'd like to change it, is the lawsuit that you said last week was over. How wrong you were.
I guess I'd be focused on the lawsuits if my stock dropped 50% in a week over one, but mine didn't, so I'm looking at the big picture.
Neither did mine. Capital preservation is the key, never forget that. I'm actually thinking we're looking at a buying opportunity. I'll have to get up early tomorrow now to see how the premarket activity looks.
Sweet dreams,
Dave
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Message 13622068
Ali,
So what? No one is perfect. Even the great minds can be wrong. Need examples?
If I do, I'll go find them in Carl's posts <G>. Seriously, these two gentlemen have much more visibility into what's going on with the manufacturers, chip set vendors, and microprocessor vendors than anyone you could possibly name. I'm sure they're basing their estimates on information that is not available to us (even Carl!). In fact, even The Register article (I think it was) posted earlier today agreed with their statement that indicated that significant cost-reduction efforts w.r.t. RDRAM are proceeding apace.
Dave
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Message 13607472
Carl,
Hi blake paterson; The Thunderbird mobo problem isn't that big of a problem cause most people buy a new motherboard when they upgrade their machines.
That's in complete contradiction to the articles so far on the issue as well as some of the posts on the AMD thread. Many, many people already bought their motherboards thinking that they'd be able to upgrade.
Oops, what am I saying?! You know everything there is to know. My mistake. All those articles and individuals who are upset must be wrong.
AMD caught the problem early,
?!?!?!?!?! At least Intel caught it before the motherboards had shipped to end-customers! AMD and Via have had samples and production out for months at least. Doesn't say much for their test procedures that they're finding out this problem with the boards already out.
Dave
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Message 15390582
Carl,
Maybe the thread is getting too nice. Okay. I can fix that. Here's Dave B getting killed on INAP,
You gotta a problem you want to discuss? What the hell is wrong with you?
Nonetheless, that would actually be my wife you want to dis. She's the one who's the friend of the people who started Internap (in fact, we actually got them together back in '94), and so the shares are in her name in an MS account. In spite of the fact that I said "I'll" hold them, the reality is that I can't touch them. I tried to get her to sell them at $40 on the way up, at $80 on the way up, and to put in a stop at the $10 that we paid for them. It was her call, and that's fine with me as the 2000 shares are such a tiny portion of our portfolio (especially now) that I really don't care.
If you'd like, I can put her in touch with you. In the meantime, what they hell were you trying to accomplish? Are you proud of yourself?
And for anyone who really wants to know pain, our friends were worth roughly $150M and $300M at the peak. Now I think it's more like $6M and $12M. Unless they sold (and I hope they did).
Take a pill, bud. In fact, take a bunch of them.
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Message 15503711
Carl,
Do you wish to assert that no such problems have ever happened with RDRAM? I'd love to prove you wrong on this, but I don't have the links available at this time. Please admit that it did occur, or give me a nice big target - a denial, preferably with an accompanying assertion that perfection is only available through subordination to the Borg, errr, Bus.
Nice try. The discussion was about incompatibility problems (different boards working or not working with different DIMMS from different manufacturers), not general chipset bugs. I will certainly agree that there have been general chipset bugs. But I will also contend that once chipsets and RIMMs made it through the qualification process (a precursor to being able to sell the chipset or RIMM), there have been no reported problems of RIMMs from a specific manufacturer not working with any of the chipsets that support RDRAM. In other words, once a RIMM was shipping, it could be used successfully in any RDRAM-based system.
Even the DDR team is admitting that this is not the case with DDR DIMMs and that they are having compatibility issues. Just as we said they would have.
If you find reports that indicate that RIMMs from XYZ company weren't compatible with Intel chipsets, I'll be happy to admit I was wrong. But they have to be shipping products.
Dave
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Message 13620365
Carl,
Hi re Dataquest and their RDRAM predictions. They've been wrong in the past, why do you trust them now?
Nice misdirection. I was pretty sure you'd try that. Please tell me why you have any credibility whatsoever. Lectures? Books? Newsletters? Visits to the 7 Dramurai? Letters to the editor?
As for Dataquest, if Intel had not screwed up the 820, their forecasts would have probably been close to dead on. Certainly much closer than yours. So you can't use that argument.
So, what makes you credible versus "The Memory Cache Book" written by Jim Handy? Or any of the multitude of activities in which Handy and Iwanyc are involved that indicate they have much more contact with the industry than you.
Thanks,
Dave
p.s. A posting of your resume would be fine. I'll be happy to match you and post mine if it makes you feel more comfortable.
Scumbria |
