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Technology Stocks : ATI Technologies in 1997 (T.ATY)
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To: Carnac who wrote (3279)4/30/1999 2:19:00 PM
From: NTT  Read Replies (2) of 5927
 
>>>yeah, I know a bit about patents. Exponential's patents (owned by S3) blow them away.<<<

Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. This is not a question of whose patents are better than others. S3's acquisition of Exponentials patents were so that they could leverage Intel by threatening Merced. The Exponential patents had NOTHING to do with their current business. I know, because I worked very closely with the Exponential people when they were developing the XP704.

ATI's acquisition of Chromatics gave them valuable patents and technology which would have taken several man-years to develop on their own. In addition, patents are useful for two things:

a) Licensing the technology to others
b) Making sure nobody else sues you for what you're doing

Sometimes B is more important than A, especially given the legal headache involved in pursuing patent infringement.

Your comments about Chromatics technology are also misinformed. ATI sold off the MPact division of Chromatics. What they acquired was an unannounced product and the engineers responsible for that ASIC. In turn, they have been integrating their graphics core with this powerful bridge. Preliminary reports from insiders indicate that Intel's offering is weak at best. Even from a non techinical perspective, Intels business plan left the analysts at their CC with a very unoptimistic feeling. There is no doubt in my mind that Intel will sell many Whitney's, but this will be strictly because of brand name, not because of any technical merit. IMO, it will soon follow the same fate as the i740. Everybody was hyping that before it came out too -- where is it now?

Anybody who thinks that Whitney will be superior to ATI's offering is clearly delusional.
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