David,
In the consumer market, SVCD clearly enjoys healthy margin
for ESST. VCD only serves to maintain good vendor-customer
relationships as margin is very poor. DVD is ready
at the sideline waiting for market to take off.
Internet product (ES4280, ES2890, ES2818,etc..) expects to have
sizable shipments in 1999 after sampling activity. The product
fights directly with WebSurfer in North America market but sees
no competition in the Asian market.
In the PC market, ISA audio is like VCD, poor margin. But
Mastro and Solo family of PCI audio continue enjoy healthy
margin. It is hard to say whether video(consumer) or
audio (PC)has higher revenue/net profit at this stage.
If not for V.90 HSP/DSP modem,ESS probably will switch
to consumer market altogether.
The V.90 HSP/DSP very effectively strengthens ESS's position in
the PC market,especially in the sub-$1000, and sub-$500 PC market
segments as more and more PC OEMs looking for reputable audio / modem
solutions at a lower cost. If not for V.90 competence,
ESS's PCI audio maybe pushed out by Intel's Pentium-X.
However, as ESS also has DSP/HSP modem, it now enjoys a unique
market position to sell its product. In this segment, only
Conexant (Rockwell)can do similar offering but Conexant
lacks the experience/expertise in the audio prodcut area.
I foresee that ESS will do an excellent job this year in its
PCI audio / modem combo solutions!
Rishi |
