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

To: Don Green who wrote (76411)	7/31/2001 11:45:10 AM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

Intel abandons Rambus to own devices Memory Moloch = Sacrificial Lamb? By Mike Magee, 31/07/2001 11:07:46 BST A STORY IN EE TIMES implies that Intel is leaving its little buddy Rambus to its own devices, hardly a ringing endorsement of its premier memory platform. The story, which you can find here, quotes Intel's CEO Craig Barrett, currently on a trip to Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, as saying the "market will decide" on whether Rambus will survive in the Pentium 4 family. This, of course, contradicts Intel's official line but as Barrett is the boss, maybe this is now the official line. It also contradicts roadmaps Intel has recently shown its customers, which have Rambus RIMMs occupying the high end right through from now until Q3 of next year, at which time a new chipset, Tulloch, which also supports faster Rambus RIMMs, also hits the marketplace. Intel is shortly to introduce the Brookdale (i845) SDRAM chipset for the Pentium 4, and the roadmaps show that and the future DDR i845 chipset will hog something like 60 per cent of the mainstream Pentium 4 market. The DDR version of the chipset is ready now, but is being held back because of agreements between Intel and Rambus, or that's how the rumours go. However, if Barrett is indeed leaving Rambus to "sink or swim" in the EE Times' words, that should cause some alarm bells to ring in Santa Clara. Existing reviews of the i845 chipset both in Tecchannel and in Tom's Hardware Guide, seem to suggest that the SDRAM version is nothing particularly brilliant in the performance stakes. Two weeks back, La Intella decided to switch its focus completely to the Pentium 4 and to its Celeron family on the desktop level, bringing the Pentium III to an early demise, apart from a small family of isolated PIIIs it is expected to launch in August and which will have no long existence. EE Times quotes an executive at Asus, one of the largest Taiwanese mobo makers, as saying that Intel will phase out its 850 chipset which supports Rambus in the middle of the year. We wonder what Rambus Ink thinks of all this. First, it contradicts recent public statements by Intel, and secondly it flies in the face of an agreement in which La is supposed to do its best by RMBS, unless that agreement has been quietly ditched. And there's another thing. Intel has little sense of history when it suits it, and seems to have completely forgotten the fact that it pushed Rambus onto the market, stubbornly flying in the face of the PC industry, persisted in pursuing that goal until it was forced to, and now seems ready to sacrifice its little friend - once the much feared Moloch of Memory - on the altar of expediency. Now we feel sorry for little Rambus for being the fall guy if these reports are correct. How could this ever happen? µ 213.219.40.69

To: Don Green who wrote (76411)	7/31/2001 1:02:09 PM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Fred Hager It's a wonder that people really pay money for that nonsense. Does anyone in that organization have any concept of marketing? A price comparison of retail component pricing of two pieces of the system is utterly ridiculous. The configuration and COG will be much different for "performance" P4/RDRAM systems than entry level P4/SDRAM. The mother board, chipset, installed cards and expansion slots, connectors, power supply, enclosure, graphics, expansion bays, HD, CDROM, etc., etc., will vary greatly from the low end to the "performance" machines. (And if a version of i845 comes with integrated graphics we'll see further cost savings). A large segment of the market, (especially in the commercial space), doesn't want or need a "performance" PC. I suspect that Celeron and PIII with integrated graphics is very popular in that segment. And when PIII goes away, they'll want similar product with P4. And it's in the best interests of the PC makers to provide that product. The i845 solution gives them a way to provide low cost/lower performance systems without cannibalizing the high end. JMO's