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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike O'Brien who wrote (13688)	7/14/1999 4:39:00 PM
From: jwag	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Re: Integration. Michael Crawford has written a feature at slashdot.org on the recent trend towards integration. slashdot.org Here is his opinion on Graphics Cards/chipsets: I expect to see more graphics chipset companies buying or being bought by graphics card manufacturers. This gives more control over the use and capabilities of a particular card/chipset combination to the company owning the design. A single company will be able to carry out every step in development and manufacturing and would be capable of locking out competitors. The buyouts allow the company that designs a successful combination to reap all of the benefits without clones dragging prices down. The independent graphics card companies will disappear as the larger companies that design their own chipsets stop selling graphics chipsets to their competitors and are capable of maintaining lower pricing due to entirely in house product development. Expect the graphics chipset companies to rapidly move into areas that have traditionally been the realm of CPU's as they search for newer and better features to improve performance and differentiate their product. I will not be surprised to see many aspects of the CPU's FPU to be taken over by the graphics chipset. Some of us still remember debating about which math coprocessor (FPU) to add to our system. This could emerge as an option on a graphics card in the next couple years. Commentary: The graphics chipset design companies will remain relatively safe in the short term but may be in jeopardy in the long term. In the short term the industry is newly emergent (how long ago since the voodoo?) and moving at an incredible pace. New generations of chipsets are coming out faster than one per year. As long as this pace continues upgradability will outweigh the cost savings given by integration. In the long run however the pace of advance is sure to slow rendering the chipset design companies vulnerable. The major CPU companies will eventually try to devoir the chipset design companies. The CPU manufacturers are easily the largest and most influential within the industry and they will probably succeed.