If I was a money manager, would I buy C-Cube now? No. Why?
Because Dell, Compaq, Intel are the money makers. Take a look at Dell's chart. It's a work of beauty over the past three years. Take a look at C-Cube's, it's a disaster. So why would I want Cube? Well, let's see...
GROWTH????
1. VCD Business. Not a lot of money to be made here. Hell, the ASPs are around $10 a pop. Not much chance of price increases either. Also, a drop in business in Q2 here makes EPS uncertain.
2. DVD. Market has not been made yet. Yea, a lot of good news, but people are just not buying kits for their PCs in large volume. Need more software on the market. Everyone and their grandmother has an MPEG2 decoder on the market, one chip or not. Massive competition. ASPs may go the way of VCDs if the competitive landscape gets more crowded, maybe not. If ZiVA is that good (I don't know if it is or isn't) maybe CUBE will do well here.
3. MPEG2 Codec. Great announcement last year, but who the hell is using it? Rumor here and there, but who are the customers? Where are the sales?
4. Divi...??? I don't know enough about them but have heard good things about growth.
Bottom line: there doesn't seem to be much in terms of growth with this company until later in the year, if at all, so money is more productive elsewhere.
Hey, I'd love to see Cube succeed, but the water is murky at best. |
