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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (26836)	8/10/1999 2:05:00 PM
From: DownSouth	Respond to of 93625

unclewest, until a couple of years ago I sold PCs/servers/networks/services to the federal government. The folks writing procurement specs do read PC mags. I remember once the top procurement officer at a not-to-be-named government agency handed our program manager an Sunday add from Luskins (a kind of Target like discount store) with a consumer model of our own brand of PC. That model, which was a piece of crap, was about 2/3 the price of what we had on his contract. He absolutely insisted that we sell him 1,000 of those computers. We absolutely refused to do so. We finally got around the problem by comparing emission results. I sold this same agency its first Pentium-based machines. They were among the first PCI-bus machines when PCI and EISA were going at it. I sold those machines largely based on a PC Week article claiming that PCI was superior to EISA and that Intel was pushing the PCI standard. Enough of my anecdotes. Just believe me, unclewest, PC Magazine articles are important for F1000 and Federal procurements. With PCs, everyone is a fricking expert, especially if they read the rags. <g>

To: unclewest who wrote (26836)	8/10/1999 2:11:00 PM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Unclewest, trying to do bottom up analysis of sales is difficult with a company like RMBS. The visibility of design wins vs royalties for the large number of companies involved (many that will result in small revenue streams) is a daunting task. I think RMBS can be adequately analyzed using DRAM market estimates together with reasonable percent of market figures. You've done that but you always tend toward very optimistic numbers while I look at what I consider a reasonable range of numbers. I always like to keep in mind that investors are almost always too optimistic. Likewise market forecasts are very often optimistic. Regarding PC mags opinions - corporations aren't going to buy RMBS initially because RMBS will be offered initially in the highest end machines. Although I've heard a few individuals say they are familiar with corporate buyers who will buy the highest end product but everything I've read indicates the majority of buyers - except consumer enthusiasts tend to buy just below the high end. I remain convinced that RMBS enabled product sales will be substantially influenced by the various mags and sites that rate systems. Rich

To: unclewest who wrote (26836)	8/12/1999 2:22:00 AM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

uncle & Richard, Rambus's initial success will be determined by all the PC mags i seriously doubt that the govt., g.e., proctor gamble, and general motors base their workstation, laptop, and pc purchases on "pc mag" articles. joe consumer will buy what is on the storeshelf according to the thickness of his wallet that day imo. serious gamers and gurus may buy according to results in pc mags. I agree with your premise, uncle. Businesses buy based on "relationships". They know that technology is going to continue to change so they evaluate technology vendors based on their ability to deliver, support, and service the product. They usually pick 2 or 3 vendors that are "approved". Dell's focus on these areas, for example, is why they're kicking butt in the corporate sales arena. Now, if Dell is the leading corporate vendor, and they design high-end PCs that only support RDRAM, and an employee wants to buy a high-end PC, then that person is going to get RDRAM. Without asking about it, or probably even knowing it exists. And companies will pay the extra amount for it, because they've built a relationship with Dell that they can't scrap in a day, a week, a month, or a quarter. There will be too large of an installed base that requires service and support. Which isn't to say that the evaluators won't read the magazines as well. But, a) it will take much more than this to break the momentum, and b) you can bet that Dell's sales people will have all the white papers and other supporting documents it needs to counter any resistance that might come up. Dave