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Technology Stocks : e.Digital Corporation(EDIG) - Embedded Digital Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (10752)	2/5/2000 4:07:00 PM
From: Jon Tara	Respond to of 18366

I won't beat a dead horse PT. I think you've gotten the message. :) I will respond to one thing you said about that penny stock - that they didn't have big-time clients. They did. Netscape isn't big-time? Yahoo isn't big-time? But they lost them, one by one, until there were none. I think that stock is an amazing lesson in how easily reputable people and companies that should know better can be duped. Who would have thunk that big-time executives would be lured from good jobs to such a company without doing their homework? Do you think anybody would have jumped into that mess if they had been aware of Hayton's criminal history? They apparently didn't bother to check, and didn't know what we already knew. As far as EDIG goes, I am very skeptical that they have anything of great value in terms of the flash memory stuff. I don't think that they have anything unique, nor that any patents will hold water. What they are doing is obvious on it's face, and, as such, is not patentable. Of COURSE you are going to equalize the wear on flash memory cells. And it ain't rocket science. Multiple Codecs? What is unique about that? Where's the unique concept here? Geez, you've got various codecs available, which are best-suited for various purposes (music, note-taking, etc.) Wow, what a unique concept - put more than one in the same device! Wish I'd have thought of that! (Note to the terminally dull - SARCASM.) Anybody doing these types of devices is going to want to roll their own software in order to reduce unit cost. The potential unit quantities are huge, and nobody is going to saddle themselves with a $10/unit cost, when they can do it themselves for .25/unit. On the other hand, I am not surprised to see big names using their software in evaluation units and even for initial production. Time to market is important. It is VERY important for chip makers to offer evaluation kits and complete prototype designs. But manufacturers almost never go with these designs in the long run - they will use them only to "bootstrap". What happens is that the big boys take advantage of companies like eDigital. If at all possible, they will do only "per unit" licensing deals with them, yes, maybe at as much as $10/unit, but they will never take more than a a few hundred licenses. How many evaluation boards do they need? And manufacturers might build the first few thousand units, or the first few months of production, using their software. But then comes the "cost reduction" effort, and after a few months of software effort, the license is out of the picture. NOBODY wants to pay for avoidable software licenses! I'm in the business, PT. I can't tell you how many times my job has been to "cost reduce" a product by taking a software component "in house" and eliminate a costly license. It's the ultimate goal of every high-volume firmware product.