Things that 3dfx screwed up:
I know I'm a little late, but I had to add my 2 cents.
The primary thing that 3dfx screwed up was Banshee and we are paying for it to this day. Voodoo2 was allowed to throw Banshee off schedule and ever since then 3dfx has been playing catch-up.
32 bit rendering? It isn't like 3dfx doesn't wan't it, but that they didn't have time for it. I lay this squarely at the feet of Banshee being late. Would it be worth the 32 bit rendering if Voodoo3 was delayed until June?
2X agp? Yep, Banshee again. Had it been released on time with the other 1X agp parts it wouldn't have been a big deal.
What's all this crap about putting a collar on the stock price? 3dfx and STB made a point of ensuring that this deal went through and that includes limiting any "out" clauses in the contract. They actually stated they did this on purpose and I agree with them. Anybody who makes their wife sign a pre-nup before getting married is planning on getting a divorce.
Repricing of the options for management? Very poor choice. This IS NOT in the shareholders best interest. If 3dfx management wanted to give incentives that are not tied to the stock price that is fine, but stock options are a specific incentive for management to make an active attempt to increase the price of the stock. Repricing options defeats this purpose.
20 million for six months of TV adds is too much money...period. I have yet to see a valid argument that shows that 3dfx is being financially responsible here.
3dfx has never, ever, to my knowledge initiated any form of cost controls. All these great revenues are for nothing of 3dfx can't get their financial house in order. This, BTW, is something STB has always been rather good at. Here's hoping Mr. Ogle rubs off on the old crew.
The lack of a public roadmap is retarded. 3dfx only needs to say something like V6 should be available on XYZ and maybe talk about a couple of features it may have. No trade secrets are really given away here. The only reason I think that management doesn't want to do this is so that they don't get held accountable for their planning.
BTW, that quarter that 3dfx ran into trouble was due ENTIRELY to Diamond cancelling their order. I reverse engineered the revenue lost and 3dfx would have been basically flat quarter over quarter. Channel sellthough didn't slow down during this period and Diamond admitted they had run out of internal inventory. It's pretty clear that Diamond was playing hardball and that this was not a 3dfx thing. The purchase of STB should solve this type of garbage going forward.
Pat |
