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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tony Viola who wrote (115148)	10/29/2000 6:42:13 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Toe nay! RE:"I know people at a top computer manufacturer that rejected Rambus outright, because they did see it as a turd. That's pretty much first-hand information, I'd say." Amazing how fast they turn on a good guy like you. <G> BTW, who was that computer company that rejected Rambus? Had we known who that was, the hand writing may have been on the wall earlier? Apple? IBM? ? Jim

To: Tony Viola who wrote (115148)	10/29/2000 7:10:44 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Respond to of 186894

Tony, <So, the engineers recognized it as a turd, but management didn't listen to them?> I doubt it. I've talked to engineers on both sides of the fence. Some were very pro-Rambus, some thought it was a bad idea (though I never heard from those people until the problems started surfacing), and most just had to rely on the opinions told by their immediate coworkers. It's unfair to say, "Engineers recognized it as a turd," because it assumes that all engineers felt the same way, or that only those engineers with a brain recognized it as a "turd." I think that most engineers who were pro-Rambus decided that the difficulties involved with the implementation were no more challenging than the difficulties involved with undertaking any other new technology. Personally, that's the way I saw it. Being a leader in a field means taking risks, and that's what Intel did. Risks are usually associated with benefits, and Rambus did indeed have its benefits. They include lower pin count, high bandwidth-per-pin, potentially good performance, and excellent scalability. You can't blame Intel's engineers for pursuing those benefits. Unfortunately in this case, the risks turned out to be a lot larger than even Intel could tackle. And to top it all off, the partisan politics and the changing market conditions became the two straws that broke the camel's back. But the entire story is a lot more complicated than your basic tale of "management ignores engineering." There were plenty of engineers who believed in Rambus and decided that it was worth it for Intel to push ahead with such a risky technology. After all, "risk-taking" is one of Intel's corporate values. This is just an instance of risk-taking turning out to be more detrimental than beneficial. But I'm hoping that it doesn't make Intel a more timid company. Tenchusatsu