Don,
You are right about the live video - in the back of my mind I've always believed that expansion in the computer industry will end once it can provide an inexpensive and reliable video-phone. However, my killer-app horizon was much shorter than that. Ted's point about bandwidth is a good one. I'm not an expert on these issues and perhaps better compression technology will help but I don't see modems getting much faster given the limited bandwidth of the phone lines. Intel is the 800-pound gorilla and will take over any market it wants to. Cirrus' new focus on internet devices and non-PC devices is, IMHO, a great strategic decision. The coming world will be almost entirely digital (cameras, internet, wireless/PCS, pagers, who knows what else?) and to be digital requires a small, integrated chip (hopefully stamped by Cirrus! :)).
Five years from now I hope to be using a video-phone or viewing live, digital video on a computer. But 1-2 years from now I hope to see a number of smaller, non-computer devices that contain Cirrus' chips!
Cheers,
John |
