Scrapps,
This mornings WSJ article on Rockwell's plan to flood market with their chips....
By Frederick Rose
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LOS ANGELES -- Aiming to beat out its major competitor in a fight
over high-speed computer modems, Rockwell International Corp. is hoping
to flood the market in the next few months with millions of computer
chips carrying a new Rockwell transmission standard.
Dwight Decker, president of Rockwell Semiconductor Systems division,
said in an interview that over 100,000 modem chips will be sent by late
this month to computer-modem makers, who are expected to have products
available for consumers by the end of the month. Mr. Decker said he
expects three million or more "chip sets" to be shipped by midyear.
Rockwell's rollout, if successful, will be far faster than previously
expected and is designed as a strike against archrival U.S. Robotics
Corp. The equipment lets computers send data over ordinary phone lines
almost twice as fast as they do today.
The plan is the latest and riskiest step in a mounting war between
Rockwell, the world's dominant maker of computer-modem chips with about
70% of the world market, and U.S. Robotics, the largest U.S. maker of
modems, which use U.S. Robotics' own chips.
The two rivals have been positioning in a market expected to total
billions of dollars. They both announced plans in September 1996 for
incompatible but directly competitive designs that can send as much as
56,000 bits of computer data per second over regular phone lines. The
current maximum is a rarely reached rate of 33,600 bits per second.
Transmission several times those numbers is attainable over special
digital phone lines or through television-cable connections, but such
connections are rare and relatively expensive. For the moment, millions
of home users are tied to the Internet by conventional, inexpensive
phone lines. The new 56K modems, as they are known, are expected to be
snapped up by consumers at initial retail prices of under $200. The
faster modems mean much to Internet use, which demands ever-speedier
connections to deliver increasingly elaborate World Wide Web contents.
"This really looks as though it's headed to a pitched battle," said
Mr. Decker. Rockwell in the early stages appeared to be trailing. U.S.
Robotics not only beat the bigger company to the punch with early
development but also enjoyed a technical advantage because some of its
current modems may be reprogrammable with new software to allow the
higher speed. U.S. Robotics told analysts on Jan. 20 that it expects to
ship its new modem design "in the next couple of weeks."
According to Mr. Decker, Rockwell has caught up. "The gun will go off
for both of us at precisely the same time," he said. Moreover, Rockwell
has addressed its second drawback, as well. The company's previous
generation of modem chips, used by hundreds of makers around the world,
relied on a cheaper, nonreprogrammable design. Rockwell has geared up to
produce chips that, like U.S. Robotics, will allow users to reprogram
their modems in the future as technical details are improved, Mr. Decker
said. That is important especially to operators of commercial phone-in
connections.
Numbers will mean much in the early skirmishes of this battle. Both
sides are seeking allies who will adopt their standard. Rockwell is
expected to announce today that it has lined up more than 130 modem
makers, about half of whom plan to ship modems by the end of March.
Copyright (c) 1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
I'm just an observer in these modem wars....hope USRX gets that tank rollin' and outflanks. Maybe they should recruit Stormin' Norman to serve on their board?
Sorry for cut/paste length but don't know who does/doen't have necessary password for the source.
Mark |
