Hi Mark,
I try to answer some of your questions:
=> This is probably a silly question, but does anyone know what => percentage of sales are to Fujitsu.
According to the balance sheet, there are still 4+ MM of Receivables
for RTEC to Fujitsu. However, about 5+ MM Payables of RTEC back
to Fujitsu. I am not even sure, whether these figures have anything
to do only with "Selling Chips".
No idea about concrete sales figures. My impression is, that RTEC
is not for the -PRIMARY- purpose of manufacturing chips for Fujitsu itself.
But I might be wrong with this.
=> I was under the impression that they never really used many of
=> Ross's processors. If that is so, why are they interested in seeing => Ross continue, besides perserving their investment?
Well let "answer" this question with a question itself:
Trying to preserve a multi-million dollar investment in SPARC processor technology - is NOT enough to see Ross further to continue?
Japanese firms have very often the attitude to "diversify their investments". At the end of such a process, they very often even
become "Holdings", like Mitsubishi having sectors like:
- Mitsubishi Banking, Mitsubishi Steel, Mitsubishi Electronics, Mitsubishi Automobiles etc.
Fujitsu is in the hardware business and with ONE foot in the SPARC processor technology. This ONE foot of Fujitsu is ROSS. Giving-up ROSS means to give-up the whole sector of future-oriented SPARC Technology.
Such a decision is not an easy one - since you don't get this type
of technology from one day to the other, unless you buy it somewhere
else.
=> Also, I would guess future investors are going to be pretty
=> interested in the new Viper chip. I think all hopes will ride on
=> the success of early demo's. Has anyone seen anything yet?
Yes, let's hope that this Viper thing will be great. In the past
RTEC proved to be able to produce great chips.
I have no idea about this one and even I would "see" it, I would
not know whether it is great - but I hope so.
=> If this was the greatest chip ever, would Fujitsu, or Sun use it in => their work stations?
Can you imagine SUN buying the chips for their workstations from
a third-party company - long-term ?
Well I can NOT imagine this scenario. It is the same, if Mercedes
would start to buy the V8 engines from Honda in their new C Class
series.
=> Who will use it? Are we going to see Ross continue to try becoming => a hardware vendor? Is this realistic?
Not sure, what you mean. If you are PRODUCING hardware - of course you should try to SELL the same. There is no way around it, unless you are
producing for Inventory Write-Offs only ;)
But this
=> Wouldn't it be funny if Cypress bought them back.
I not even know, that "Cypress" had ever to do anything with RTEC.
Where did you get this one from ?
=> It's one thing to make chips for Sun and another to run an
=> independant company.
RTEC is NOT making chips for SUN. According to their LAST and CURRENT
10Q it is clearly mentioned, that SUN reduced his orders to almost
Zero percentage.
Hope this helps and hope I was not too wrong with the things above.
Regards,
Stefan |
