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To: kash johal who wrote (66)	9/18/1999 1:40:00 PM
From: grok	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 271

RE: <So on an engineering basis Rambus is CLEARLY a BUST. However customers do not buy based on a detailed engineeering analysis.> Yes, and so maybe Rambus will soar. But the issue is: If something goes wrong and there are problems due to poor availability, poor performance, poor pricing, etc the collapse can be devastatingly fast and deep since there is no true merit holding up that $2B mkt cap. Cisco may go down on Monday, too, but I'm not to worried about it because there is a whole mountain holding it up.

To: kash johal who wrote (66)	9/18/1999 2:10:00 PM
From: Charles R	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 271

Kash, <My wife drives a Landcruiser to shuttle the kids around and to to do grocery shopping and occasional family trips. On an engineering basis - completely stoopid. Way too expensive,inefficent etc. So the power of marketing and branding is being missed here in this discussion. There WILL be a FIRESTORM of ads touting the new PC 600-PC 800 memory with the 133Mhz bus. And these machines will be fully loaded - best 4x AGP graphics cards, fastest disks etc, > I think this argument can become weak in the context of OEMs - in the sense that it is not consumer picking making the DRAM choice but the OEM. Consumer marketing and OEM marketing, IMHO, are completely different beasts. But, let's say Intel can muscle it past OEMs and take it to consumers - in that case, can Intel/Rambus can develop a strong perception of a high-end product when the reviews and press do not support it? <Graphics today is an excellent example. Most folks I know just use 1024x768 or even 800x600 on their graphics cards and use their PCs for software development, mS office apps, web-cruising etc and NEVER play any 3d games. And yet I challenge any of you to buy a DELL/COMPAQ/GTW/HP/IBM PC machine that doesn't come with an awesome grapics card which is way overkill for apps. So yes rambus performance will suck and it is too expensive today. > It is interesting that you compare graphics situation with RDRAM situation. I do not see much of a similarity - in graphics the consumer is getting a high end card that distinctly does more than he needs. In the case of RDRAM, you are saying that RDRAM will underperform its competitors (not by much but still..) <In Q4 only a small percentage of such systems will be available and they will be snapped up IMHO.> This is something I am no longer sure of. Check how fast PIII ASPs are going down as AMD overtakes Intel in performance/MHz. If that sitution continues the Rambus cost component would start to dominate the PC and I am hard pressed to believe that Intel would let that happen. Chuck

To: kash johal who wrote (66)	9/18/1999 2:57:00 PM
From: grok	Respond to of 271

RE: <folks are buying high speed Athlons (i hope) plus high speed PIII's in huge volumes when a $50 Celeron 400 is adequate. And yet folks pay a $700-800 delta in end system price for no real gains for everyday apps.> Yes, Intel's $300B mkt cap depends on this incredible balancing act of non-linear price/performance. They are masters of it and you can be sure their entire organization is totally focused on perpetuating it. It is a marvel. They are juggling three bowling pins while standing on a board which is balanced on a ball which is resting on a skateboard. And they can do it! Then, for some reason, they decided to add a fourth bowling pin with a Rambus label and get no real benefit from it. Do you think that even Intel may be over extending themselves?