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To: Dave B who wrote (73496)	5/23/2001 12:40:15 AM
From: Scumbria	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Dave, Amazing that you continue to assert some superior expertise in business, after being wrong about everything so far. Scumbria

To: Dave B who wrote (73496)	5/23/2001 1:21:03 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

It is a well known economic principle that in the long run the price of any commodity is the cost of its production. In case of DRAM, this principle manifests itself in an interesting way; In the early stages, supply is below demand and the product is quite profitable. As more and more producers jump on the band wagon, the price drops to its cost of production. However, the inevitable underestimation of industrywide capacity to produce as well as the cyclical nature of the business, brings the price of the most mature segments well below cost. At which point anyone who has not already jumped on the next-hot-segment will do so and the cycle repeats. This is not particular to DRAM industry; all commodity producers (e.g. steel, copper, etc) go through the same cycle. However, other commodities tend to have higher life cycles as well as some temporary venues for the producers to constrain the supply (major mining companies for example try to buy out the new reserves in order to prevent them coming online quickly). Unfortunately for DRAM makers, the life cycle is too short and it is hard to control the supply. Sun Tzu PS Carl, I believe the reason NVDA uses DDR has more to do with faster access time than anything else. If I recall correctly, the bus is too slow to take full advantage higher bandwidths.

To: Dave B who wrote (73496)	5/23/2001 2:35:33 AM
From: The Prophet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

You forget that Bilow is a communist.

To: Dave B who wrote (73496)	5/23/2001 3:32:29 AM
From: Eric K.	Respond to of 93625

Dave-- You again show your remarkable ability to obfuscate the point of an argument by taking a small statement out of the context of the big picture argument. I read Scumbria's message linking to old posts of you in "discussion" with KG4. You displayed a remarkable ability to come off as being correct while making points that were utter drivel and not at all counters to what the person with whom you were engaged in discussion had actually asserted. Carl's message had nothing to do with the balance sheet profitability of Micron, Samsung, et al or the fundamental goal of a corporation. He was asserting that whether the market chooses DDR or RDRAM has little to do with how profitable these products are for the memory makers (because the memory makers don't get to choose which memory technology becomes mainstream), but with how profitable the memory is for the box-makers and other consumers of the memory to include in their products. In other words, a correct rebuttal to his assertion about the primacy of cost involves the power of Micron, Samsung, etc. versus the power of Dell, Compaq, ... versus Intel, AMD, VIA, ServerWerks, Ali, ... in choosing the next memory standard. Your garbage post on cyclical commodity industries is utterly irrelevant to Carl's post. You did almost the exact same thing to KG4 two years ago, and you were as wrong in that case. He was discussing how Intel was forcing RDRAM-- a product non competitive with DDR-- to become the standard, and how this meant that RAMBus was screwed if Intel flinched or there was excess resistance from the rest of the industry. You responded with a sequence of brain-dead posts on the utterly irrelevant philosophical/business-strategy question of whether a computer maker was obligated to/should offer alternative products. All the while you attempted to make it sound like you were saying something relevant to RDRAM and covering the points KG4 had raised. -Eric ps: You're a classic case of overly clever arrogance leading to utter wrongness. The sad thing is that as long as you're dealing with people dumber than you, your brand of structured semi-truth works.

To: Dave B who wrote (73496)	5/23/2001 10:23:34 AM
From: gnuman	Respond to of 93625

Dave. Good post. <EOM>

To: Dave B who wrote (73496)	5/23/2001 2:57:40 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi Dave B; Re: Prices, technology, and the profitability of memory... When my company chooses what memories to design into new products, price is an issue. That is why the cheapest memory is the mainstream one. I should think that this would allow you to understand the connection between prices, technology, and the future of the split between DDR, SDRAM and RDRAM. -- Carl P.S. Here's what you were saying about my charting DDR and RDRAM prices before the trend went so viciously against you: "I will miss his due diligence on the DDR and Pricewatch fronts (without his commentary)." #reply-15721200