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

To: Bilow who wrote (33828)	11/4/1999 10:52:00 AM
From: John Stichnoth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

I love the technical to-and-fro that you techies provide, and I know that in the long term it's critical, but I'm constantly reminded of Bill Gates' comeback to Steve Jobs, "You don't get it. It doesn't matter." --In the short term, Intel has so much invested in RDRAM, they won't allow it NOT to become the mainstream platform; --Marketing efforts of the major box makers will all be focused on Rambus machines; --What matters is the value chain that is developed, which gives one company "Gorilla" status. To Bill Gates, that was the linkup with IBM, which gave their inferior product absolute dominance. For Rambus, it is the linkups with Intel, the major memory makers and the major box makers, which gives them dominance regardless of any questions about the product's superiority. --"Gorilla" is a defined term of Geoffrey Moore, from his book "The Gorilla Game". In it he demonstrates that (1) companies with proprietary technology that achieve dominant positions in their markets, (2) tend to extend their dominance, both within their market and into adjacent markets (e.g., as Intel used its CPU lead to gain the edge in motherboards), and (3) these Gorillas have a lot more room to make mistakes before they lose their ability to move "anywhere they want". Intel has obviously made some mistakes, but it also continues to do an awful lot of things right, and they are a long way from ceding their Gorilla status. Just some thoughts that have been nagging at me the last couple of days that I wanted to share. Best to all (and Carl--Go ahead take the plunge a little bit, if only to increase your interest!) JS