Hi The Prophet; Re: "INTC wants 4i RDRAM for the network processing business; ..." Intel chose 4i RDRAM 2 years ago. Now they wish they'd chosen DDR.
Re: "... INTC sees that it must allow competition ..." Ah, the ancient Rambus fantasy. Intel acts in certain ways because they want to improve competition. It's a lot simpler (and more realistic) to base your scenarios on the assumption that Intel wants to make money. I guess that's too simple for a moron.
Re: "... in order to let the RDRAM market grow and keep prices cheap, so they strike a deal with SiS, RMBS, and Samsung under which INTC would let SiS be the sole 4i chipset maker (at least for now)." BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Why would Rambus agree to a deal that would reduce the number of 4i chipset makers? The amount of RDRAM used by Intel's networking stuff is infinitesimal.
Re: "Everyone's happy - SiS gets to dominate an emerging market niche; ..." Except that SiS already has announced 9 DDR chipsets.
Re: "RMBS gets a new proponent;" It seems to me that dropping Intel and gaining SiS can hardly seem like much of a bargain to Rambus. But what the heck, any company that can spin as well as Rambus (patents are strong, DDR isn't working, Intel loves us, RDRAM gonna be cheap soon ...).
Re: "Samsung gets a whole new market (4i and network processors) all to itself, ..." Just what Intel wants, a market which is so tiny that they're the only memory maker attracted to it. Yeah, that's going to be some inexpensive memory, LOL!!!
Re: "... and INTC, well, INTC gets the price of RDRAM down for network processors and high end desktop processors." Too bad Intel (a) is using DDR for their new network processor designs, (b) is selling their network processors at such incredibly high prices that RDRAM is the least of their worries, and (c) is working on a dual channel DDR chipset that will eliminate the last of their RDRAM usage.
Other than these minor problems, your analysis is brilliant.
-- Carl |
