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

To: Estephen who wrote (28627)	9/3/1999 8:33:00 AM
From: jmac	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

I thnk you should read the releases again and stop listening to the spin CNBC put on it. RAMBUS is not on hold. PC-133 is simply going to be used until more RAMBUS can be produced. You will see RAMBUS Pcs out there from DELL and CPQ on 9/27/99 this year. If RMBS was truly put on hold, RMBS would have been down 50% not 5%. Re-reread your research before you decide to sell your RMBS or short it.

To: Estephen who wrote (28627)	9/3/1999 10:32:00 AM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

Wendle, I just sent the following e-mail to Upside: To whom it may concern: This story was on your web site this morning: upside.com Rambus On Hold: Intel excused itself and put Rambus on hold Thursday, as the chip giant decided how it could break the bad news to its memory chipset supplier. Due to troubles in making Rambus technology work on Intel chips, Intel won't start using Rambus chipset technology as soon as planned. The news crushed investor confidence in Rambus and caused a 5-percent drop in Rambus' stock. The chip giant is Rambus' main customer, but will roll out a whole new generation of chips using its existing memory chipset, leaving Rambus to sit in the waiting room until it is called on again. On the bright side, worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $11.55 billion in July 1999, up 19.3 percent from a year ago. Here are the problems with the story: 1) Rambus doesn't actually make anything. They are an Intellectual Property company. They have developed a faster interface for DRAM memory and have licensed the design to the majority of DRAM mfrs. (here's a link to the list: rambus.com as well as ASIC companies, et cetera. So Intel has NOT "put Rambus on hold Thursday, as the chip giant decided how it could break the bad news to its memory chipset supplier" because Intel makes the chipsets themselves, not Rambus. 2) The Camino chipset being developed by Intel (the 820) is the chipset that supports RDRAM and is still on track to be introduced 9/27. So it is NOT true that Intel "will roll out a whole new generation of chips using its existing memory chipset, leaving Rambus to sit in the waiting room until it is called on again". The current chipset, the 440BX, is not changing yet, and , in fact, Intel said that support for PC-133 will not be added to its chipsets until the first half of next year. The 820 with RDRAM support will, again, begin shipping in about 3 « weeks. 3) As for "the news crushed investor confidence in Rambus and caused a 5-percent drop in Rambus' stock", please look at an intraday chart for yesterday. The stock gapped down 10 points at the open from a close of just over 95 on Wednesday to about 85. It got down to about 83 within the first half hour or hour. From there, the rest of the day was completely up and to the right, getting as high as 92 and recovering much of the loss. And today it's recovered most of the 5% you said it lost yesterday already. 4) Finally, what Intel DID say at the IDF was that it was still completely committed to Rambus. No one has ever suggested that RDRAM was going to replace SDRAM on Day 1 (it WILL be more expensive than SDRAM initially, and production WILL be limited). Most informed investors, analysts, etc. believe it will be a 2-4 year process. Intel's original plan was to continue using PC-100 SDRAM in the machines that did not use RDRAM. However, due to competitive pressures (namely, Via Technologies support of PC-133 in their chipset), Intel has to support PC-133 in the systems that they thought could stay with PC-100. So Intel is not replacing RDRAM with PC-133, they are replacing PC-100 with PC-133. The RDRAM ramp will continue, constrained only by how quickly the DRAM manufacturers can increase production yields. I have a lot of respect for your publication, but I've never seen so many facts botched in such a short paragraph. You do your readers a disservice, and this deserves a correction. Please call Intel or Rambus to get a better handle on the story.