tinkershaw, a company convicted of fraud did commit a crime. fraud is a crime.
Skeeter,
You took a misinterpretation of a civil lawsuit and directly called Rambus criminal, combined a two year old out-of-context quote from Barrett which has no real supporting evidence from Intel's real world actions, and concluded it with a quote from Infineon's lead trial attorney.
Hmmmm, objective assessment of the facts. In this context I suppose so was the Spanish Inquisition.
But to answer your question in more detail:
if you don't know the difference between criminal fraud and civil fraud it is far beyond me to explain the difference. They are not the same thing at all. With your logic every single time someone loses a civil suit and has to pay damages they are being punished for their "crime." This is not the case whatsoever. Many criminal categories are also civil categories. Just because they share the same name does not make it a criminal act.
In regard to Rambus stealing, it is kind of funny how over 1/2 of the industry has decided to pay the thief for its crime. Maybe it has something to do with whatever happened that it was so ambiguous at best and better argued by Infineon's counsel, that no one, including Infineon who was inches from settling with Rambus, even really knew what happened. Possibly because a cognizable cause of action lay, and Infineon's very good attorneys talked them into testing it out. This is not a case of Infineon was moral Rambus immoral. Infineon good and victimized Rambus bad and victimizer. Trust me, as a plaintiffs attorney what you look for is a cognizable cause of action. Something you can get past summary judgment. You never really know if you can win the suit or not but you roll the dice and use it for negotiating leverage. This is about as certain as Infineon ever was in this case.
I just hope the color grey fits into your perspective on the world somewhere.
I don't mean to sound offensive here. Honestly, I do respect your opinion. But read your words. The facts simply are not that clear cut. I'm certain your no expert on tax or security law or antitrust law, but you know, even an expert (as I suppose I was in the past on these issues when I advised people on these topics) can't tell you in a good portion of situatins in these areas whether or not you are breaking some arbitrary law in this area. There is just no black and white like "thou shall not kill." Even here there is grey, even for areas not related to self-defense. People's lives have been ruined by doing things they thought were honest and commonsensical, and in fact their attorneys probably thought the same, only to find that they were actually in a gray area, faced with a very talented attorney with a vendetta in just the right forum that is friendly to his opinion on the subject and finding themselves in big trouble for actions that no one really thought were in breach of any legal duty at all.
Security law is so bad that things called "safe harbor" provisions had to be invented because no one ever really knew if they were in compliance with the law or not. Safe harbor provisions are actions, specifically articulated, that the SEC will guarantee are free from criminal liability. Things like only having investors with income of greater than $200,000. Has nothing much to do with the underlying law, but it will keep you from testing the ambiguity of the statute and regulations. This fraud action is really in the same light. Unfortunately there was no safe harbor provision to be complied with in this case.
Given just how grey the legal issues in this case are, there is no way one can hold such a strong and virulent opinion (and don't get me wrong, I like such opinions, certainly beats wishy-washy moderation on most issues) without being emotionally bias. The facts just are not that black and white.
As for my financial interest, I'm sure, being human, that my opinions may sometime be biased left or right because of this, at least subconsciously, but I do my best to remain as objective as possible. Currently Rambus represents less than 10% of my portfolio. It may go up or down substantially from there at any time. I think that is small enough to restrain any bias I have on the issue, at least from a pecuniary basis.
And what I mean by objective fact is discuss the issues, good and bad, not diligently collecting selected quotes in order to advocate for one side or other.
I mean, Barrett's quote was made in regard to the 820, a chip I think almost all can agree was ill-suited to RDRAM. It should really have just been released with SDRAM. RDRAM did little for it, added unnecessary expense, and the product was a real embarressment. In addition the cost of RDRAM took a lot longer to fall than Intel anticipated. It was in regard to this that Barrett was speaking. He was not speaking to a general regret of committing his company to an RDRAM road-map. In fact Intel's actions speak boldly to the contrary. Any objective look at Intel's roadmap, statements, investments and actions, even as regard to the 845 launch, can lead to no other conclusion than Intel is still committed to RDRAM on the desktop. the DDR version of the 845 had best just kill Rambus in the marketplace, otherwise it is likely to be the last Intel desktop chip that utilizes DDR. Only some desperate success like this with the DDR 845 will get Intel to change to a more DDR centric vision of the desktop. That is objective fact from the evidence we have.
Intel has repeatedly stated that if RDRAM and DDR reach relative price parity, that the DDR version of the 845 will not even be necessary. It is this historical market crash of the DRAM market that is the only thing keeping DDR and RDRAM from being within price parity. RDRAM is currently selling for less than SDRAM sold for at this time last year.
Sheeesh, if I hadn't got so tired of that buzzword "expensive" RDRAM memory that was in every news story and press releae it would almost be laughable that RDRAM is even considered an "expensive" memory when it costs less than the "cheap" SDRAM did last year.
So my statement is made in this context. Yes, DDR is selling for cheaper than RDRAM. Yes, RDRAM is much cheaper at this moment than anyone expected it would be by this time. Both events have occurred. And Yes, Intel has one, ONE DDR based desktop chip on its road map; Intel has stated repeatedly that it is only there if the price parity between DDR and RDRAM doesn't appear in a timely enough fashion. So this DDR chip is not even a sure thing to be released. But if it is, then this will be DDR's big chance, maybe its only chance with Intel on the desktop. It had better succeed big time or DDR and Intel on the desktop are dead. DDR will have to rely on AMD and VIA to become mainstream. Possible, but certainly not the best horses to accomplish this task.
That is the objective evidence in regard to Intel and its relationship to DDR and RDRAM on the desktop. RDRAM is their choice, but due to the extraordinary crash in this market, and Micron's need to produce below cost DDR just to pay for overhead, the cheaper than SDRAM RDRAM (as of last year's prices) is still not at price parity on the open-market with DDR. Therefore DDR will get its one chance with Intel on the desktop.
Doesn't quite sound to me the way you phrased it with Barrett's comments, nor followed it up by quotes from Infineon's lead counsel.
I have no doubt that others can draw other conclusions, but to do so, lets not advocate, lets look at the objective evidence.
Tinker
P.S. My interpretation of the current facts regarding DDRs market price. A shakeout will occur. Micron, Infineon and Hyundai cannot survive for very long continuing to churn out below cost DDR. Eventually the supply and demand of DDR will have to ease, probably from someone going out of business. I don't think DDR prices at this level are sustainable long-term. But there may be other reasonable interpretations of these objective fact.
Of course DDR-III may always come to the rescue;)
Tinker |
