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

To: qwave who wrote (34284)	11/12/1999 2:17:00 AM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Qwave, your arguments are nothing but a straw-man. <CDMA is not a commodity. DRAM, whether it is DDR or RDRAM, is a commodity.> And your point is ... ? <Talk about embedded RDRAM is crap.> And your point is ... ? <Voice recognition as a driver for RDRAM. Crap again.> No one said that voice recognition is the make-or-break of RDRAM's success. It's just one example of many future technologies that could use extra memory bandwidth. Although it's hard to predict the future, I think it's a pretty good assumption that whatever the future will bring, it will require more memory bandwidth. Do you agree? <You don't need hundreds of MHz to sample speech at 64kbps or less.> I don't think you really know how modern-day voice recognition works. Sure, the actual sampling of the voice requires a very small fraction of memory bandwidth, but the actual recognition algorithms require a lot of memory capacity to store the voice patterns. Why do you think performance of voice recognition software improves when better memory technologies are used? This has been demonstrated repeatedly by 3rd party web sites like Tom's Hardware Guide and Anandtech. <I have been reading the RMBS board for a number of months and the only people I find reasonable are Dan3, Bilow, and Don.> Uh huh. And I guess the rest of us are just blowing hot air, right? Tenchusatsu

To: qwave who wrote (34284)	11/12/1999 6:17:00 AM
From: John Walliker	Respond to of 93625

gwave, All this talk about RMBS being a QCOM. No way I haven't seem much of that here. QCOM has very extensive IPR that is much deeper than anything that RMBS has and very difficult to work around. CDMA is not a commodity. DRAM, whether it is DDR or RDRAM, is a commodity Both companies have extensive IPR that is difficult to work around. Both companies face competition from other technologies that don't use it. Both companies are likely to be successful in the long term. Both companies are selling into commodity markets. Talk about embedded RDRAM is crap. That is probably why you have not seen any here apart from the occasional question. Voice recognition as a driver for RDRAM. Crap again. Voice recognition is not a bandwidth problem it is a computational problem. You don't need hundreds of MHz to sample speech at 64kbps or less. No, you don't. The sound card does this for you with negligible cpu overhead. However, the complexity involved in reliable speech recognition software is considerable and involves quantities of data much larger than can be stored in cache memory. This does make it a memory bandwidth problem - amongst other things. I would be very cautious with this stock. I find many of the posters here to be doing a disservice to the readers (Can you say Uncle?). Too many rose color glasses. Unclewest has done this thread a great service through his thorough research and dissemination of it. There are as you point out plenty of voices to counter his enthusiasm. It is not as if readers of this thread have not been exposed to all points of view. I look forward to reading more from you. I am sure you have plenty of informative contributions to make, whether for or against Rambus. The whole point is that we each come to our own investment conclusions based on the balance of all the information we read. Please don't feel that you need to save us from ourselves. John

To: qwave who wrote (34284)	11/12/1999 8:27:00 AM
From: Tom Pulley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Re"I find many of the posters here to be doing a disservice to the readers (Can you say Uncle?). Too many rose color glasses." Quave, of the boards I read, I find Unclewest to be one of better posters to read because he is very clear about the assumptions he makes on market size, market share, royalty rate, margins, etc. We all are then capable of evaluating these assumptions as to how optimistic they might or might not be. At the end of the day, Unclewest has assumed that the Rambus technology will prevail due to the support from Intel and others. Dan3 and various others assume the technology won't prevail due to cost and technical issues. Two different views, either may be correct. Based on good input from both sides we can look at risk/reward ratio for this stock versus others and make our buy/sell decisions. So, as a long time lurker, let me say that I appreciate the effort of the longs and the shorts in explaining their views. I don't see the need to get upset at each other, but type "A" personalities have that tendency and I'll bet these guys are all type A's. For my part, due to information gleaned from Unclewest and others I have an average buy price of 72 and I'm holding through all the ups and downs. If the technology becomes mainstream (40% chance in my view), I think we'll see $300-400 in the next couple years. If the technology dies out to a niche product, we'll see $10-20. Now I'll calculate that: .4$350 + .6$15 = $149 / share = 65% in two years. I like to see my risked estimates come to a 100% gain in two years, so I wouldn't buy at this point (I did buy in the 60's and 70's), but I'll hold and enjoy the posts from the longs and shorts. Tom

To: qwave who wrote (34284)	11/12/1999 9:08:00 AM
From: Jdaasoc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

qwave member as of Thursday: from profile Name qwave Member Since 11/11/99 RMBS FUD now worth $150 john

To: qwave who wrote (34284)	11/12/1999 9:57:00 AM
From: John Stichnoth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Welcome to the thread, qwave. You've made quite an entry! What makes these threads worthwhile is the mix of optimistic views with the pessimistic. Sorry it took you so long to join, and balance what you view as uncle's rose colored vision. Of course, the aim is to gain a variety of well-stated views, not to close off views. QCOM vs RMBS--Not that this has been a big point on the thread, but since you brought it up. . . . A patent search lists 229 patents for Rambus, 545 for Qualcomm. That values Rambus' patents at $8.7Mm each, and Qualcomm's at $101MM each. [The corollary question is how enabling are any of the patents. Obviously, the market thinks that Qualcomm's version of wireless is worth lots.] DRAM should perhaps best be compared with analog "wireless", in which IPR was originally irrelevant, or spread among so many players as to be irrelevant. Rambus's promise is that it might impose a proprietary standard on the volatile memory space, the same way Qualcomm promises to dominate the digital wireless realm. Recognizing that the volatile memory space is smaller than the wireless space, I would expect Rambus to be worth less than Qualcomm, and it is. Hey, it's you who led your post with the Qualcomm comparison! I wouldn't take this comparison too seriously, because each company we look at must stand on its own merits. Re Voice Recognition--I have seen mention of this on the thread, and it would be good to get a further description of how it works. For instance, you mention compression. Is this a lossy process, and might less compression add accuracy to the VR process? What is the process that Dragon uses, or IBM uses, in converting the person's words into letters/words on the monitor? At some point obviously, data is fed into the CPU. Doesn't that signal come from the Ram, where it sits after being compressed? [This is not a sarcastic question. We have not had a voice reconition professional on the thread before, and could use your insight in this area. I am sure that other Rambus thread members welcome you to the thread, and welcome productive intercourse on this very interesting stock. Best, JS