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Technology Stocks : ATI Technologies in 1997 (T.ATY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Marc who wrote (3679)	7/7/1999 6:41:00 PM
From: ron wong	Respond to of 5927

Ati's head pursues convergence jackpot By Lara Thais King, Vancouver Computes The technology lifestyle magazine Convergence-lately everybody is talking about this trend towards making bedfellows of two or more unlikely technologies (up to and including such things as microwave banking or a Net-surfing fridge). This month's cover features ATI Technologies' Kwok Yuen (K.Y.) Ho, a leader in 3-D graphics chip making his own moves into the converging electronic device arena. K.Y.'s first convergence market offering is his new set-top box. Perhaps not quite the weird blending of technologies sometimes described in this area, but it promises to be a very hot product. The Set-Top Wonder 11 is poised to hit this month. Shaw Cable subscribers will be among the first to take advantage of this very cool box. Often described as Web TV, the Set-Top box offers much more. The ATI Technologies reference has been developed for consumer OEMs and the possibilities are huge:3-D games, Web browsing, e-mail, video downloads, and DVD- all running on Windows CE software. Canadian Business's Entrepreneur of the Year, ATI's high-spirited president and CEO is quick to laugh-who wouldn't be, with the kind of success ATI has received? Exploring new possibilities But for continued success, K.Y. says the company will have to look in new directions, such as the convergence market. "There's huge potential for growth in consumer appliances," says K.Y. According to K.Y., ATI has outgrown the PC industry, with a 92 per cent increase in revenue in 1998 over the previous year and an expected 60 per cent increase for this year. With $1.12 billion in revenue for 1998, one must expect expansion. Ground has recently been broken to erect a new 240,000 square -foot building that will connect to the existing Thornhill location. The secret to ATI's success? The 48-year-old president credits the company's staff. "It's a good team of people,"he says of the 1,100 Canadian(1,700 worldwide) employees. A Royal Bank executive was recently quoted with another reason for ATI's success: "K.Y. Ho is quick at identifying what the next big thing is going to be." And it would seem that K.Y's money is on the set-top market. "We're going to hit the jackpot!" he laughs. But the numbers in the set0top industry are no laughing matter. In 1997, 7 million set-top units were sold worldwide. That figure is expected to jump to 20 million in 1999. Eighty per cent solution? Dan Eiref, director of set-top box marketing for ATI, says ATI's Set-Top Wonder 11 is about eighty per cent of the product. It has the CPU, memory, graphics, TV tuner, and PCI slots, but no modem or satellite tuner. The set-top, he says, is a win for everybody. With it, the consumer gets more channels and bandwidth, and can browse the Web, send e-mail, and even do home shopping. Cable operators get a brand new source of revenue, from the e-mailing, browsing, and shopping. " It's the Holy Grail for advertisers," he says being able to directly target consumers with the click of a button. Eiref says there are currently no clear leaders in the set-top market, but feels ATI is in a good position. "To be good in convergence you need to good at 2-D and 3D graphics." And who better than a world leader in graphic chips to vie for the number-one position? Convergence products, K.Y. feels, will be able to reach people in a way that PC's couldn't. " Many people are still scared to use computers. When they hear personal computer, they think 'high-tech,'" he says. But he explains that people use computer devices such as microwaves all the time. They just don't think of them as computers. Being reasonable And when asked his thoughts on such developments as a microwave that you can do your banking on or a refrigerator that can make your grocery lists or downloads recipes, K.Y. surprisingly, didn't laugh. "Everything is possible and resonable. Would you have believed ten years ago what we have today? Technology moves faster than our imagination."