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Technology Stocks : Transmeta (TMTA)-The Monster That Could Slay Intel -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AmericanVoter who wrote (205)	10/31/2000 11:37:36 AM
From: Neil H	Respond to of 421

My MSDW clientserve account shows IPO for 11/6 still: From Marketwatch Can Transmeta buck the IPO market? By Tom Taulli, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 12:04 PM ET Oct 30, 2000 NewsWatch Latest headlines NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Transmeta was founded in 1995, and, for most of its history, it was in stealth mode. Today on CBS MarketWatch Nasdaq stages early rally; Dow gains Starwood to sell Ciga Europe hotels Consumer confidence erodes Calandra: Broadband's luster dims Stocks in broad advance across Asia More top stories... CBS MarketWatch Columns Updated: 10/31/2000 10:41:02 AM ET Then again, the company is in the semicondutor industry, which is hypercompetitive. The element of surprise can be crucial. Of course, the company is now planning to go public. The lead underwriter is Morgan Stanley and the price range is $11 to $13 (the company intends to sell 13 million shares). The proposed ticker symbol is "TMTA" (TMTA: news, msgs). The company's product is named after a fictional character, Crusoe (remember, he was stranded on a desolate island?). Crusoe is a microchip built for new-age mobile Internet computers -- which are expected to flood the market over the next few years. The Crusoe chip is a hybrid of software and hardware. Basically, the software components (called Code Morphing) perform functions that have normally been performed by hardware-based processors. This means that the chip has a large degree of flexibility, which is critical for wireless devices. Because of the software components, there are fewer transistors needed to perform certain tasks. This means a reduction in power consumption and, as a result, extended battery life. In fact, the company has developed another technology to further extend battery life: LongRun. It analyzes application workload and adjusts continuously so as to optimize voltage and performance. Transmeta has been the culmination of the efforts of many high-tech achievers. David Ditzel, the CEO and a co-founder, has been in advanced computing for over 25 years. In 1980, he wrote a seminal paper on Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) technologies for semiconductor designs (he has written over 30 technical papers). At Sun (SUNW: news, msgs), he was chief technical officer and helped build the SPARC processors, as well as technologies for low-power computing. Doug Laird, the Transmeta vice president of product development, was at Sun, as well. He helped build the UltraSPARC I processor. But perhaps the most notable member of the Transmeta team is Linus Torvalds. Yep, he's the guy who invented Linux and revolutionized computing with open source development. At Transmeta, he helped develop the Code Morphing software. But keep in mind that the company is still in its early stages. The first product was not launched until the beginning of 2000. And the semiconductor industry can be highly volatile, especially lately. Look at the swings in National Semiconductor, AMD and Intel. But Transmeta does apparently have an architecture that makes sense for the post desktop era. By all accounts, this should be an IPO that can withstand the current brutal IPO market.