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

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (13735)	7/15/1999 11:53:00 PM
From: Obewon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

This is speculation at this point of course but I have a premonition that the "new technology" that 3dfx is going to announce has already been incorporated into the Voodoo3 3500 in a rudimentary way. Like Matrox's Environmental Bump Mapping and S3's S3TC compression features, the main point it to show developers that there is a major benefit that can be had. It will usually be many months before these new features are regularly supported in any major way. (ie In time for Napalm or whatever is next!) While the Voodoo3 chip is NOT going to be changed from what has previously announced, 3dfx has shown that they are not adverse to adding (or changing) features to the board given the right timeframe. Designing the board is necessarily easier than the chip itself (otherwise the independent board companies would have disappeared long ago). It is possible that, given the slippage of TNT2 and the G400, the poor performance of the Savage4, and 3dfx's decision to further postpone the V3 3500TV because of heavy demand for the Voodoo3 3000, 3dfx decided to add more features after E3. BTW, did anyone else take a look at S3's earnings announcement this afternoon? Still pretty bad (looking at their core operating business) but they seem to have managed to significantly lower their cost of good sold. (Matter of fact, the improvement in gross margins is so good that I am a little suspicious of it without knowing more of how they accomplished it.) It will be interesting to see if they can manage to do anything with Diamond. (Personally I think ANYONE who took over Diamond could probably benefit just by firing Diamond's management and installing some financial controls in place.) Obewon

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (13735)	7/16/1999 6:35:00 AM
From: Joe C.	Respond to of 16960

Patrick, You may be right about the 3500 delay and their wanting to extend the usefulness of the V3 cycle. It does make good business sense if as you say V3 is still expected to sell well, 3500TV release will prove popular on its' own right, and competitors are stalled with their next gens. However, I am still upset with the events of the last few weeks: 1. Many people have faithfully awaited (and pre-ordered) the release of the high end V3 only to find the product was changed (no LCD) and then subsequently further delayed. 2. The further delays become more problematic when coupled with the announcement that Compaq will be getting the awaited chip much sooner. 3. The Talon machine was announced but has yet become available - where's the "guts by 3dfx". 4. A 3500TV version of the Falcon was announced but is yet to be seen. These actions taken together hurt their credibility in the eyes of the consumer. Why take pre-orders so early? Why announce configurations and then delay? While am at it, where's their gaming site? Where's the final OpenGL ICD? Where's Jason who is supposed to be providing us with the little details of information that may not be importnat in the overall scheme of things but allay investor fears that are magnified through these boards? I have to say that I've become quite skeptical in the last few months and the Compaq announcement topped it all off. Naturally, the stock reacts by making a nice move up. I plan on staying upset until TDFX starts showing better execution or the stock doubles. I'm friggen tired of TDFX continually eating away my other gains from stocks in which I know less about. Maybe I'm just too close... Joe C.