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Technology Stocks : S3 (A LONGER TERM PERSPECTIVE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James T. who wrote (7841)	11/13/1997 7:16:00 AM
From: mark doubiago	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14577

I've been wondering for awhile if we haven't all been scammed for the last year or two. Everyone. The shareholders, customers, OEMs, employees, etc. Maybe the way that S3 got such a big market share was through creative accounting, shipping, and propaganda starting back in the 95 - 96 time frame. So many things have happened over the last year or two that kinda make you wonder. Things such as: 1. departure of the CFO 2. $102,000,000 financing deal 3. Management's evasiveness with shareholders and analysts 4. Diamond, STB, and the OEM's move to other chip makers 5. S3's pricing pressure 2 quarters ago that didn't seem to bother the other chip makers much at all Maybe management has had the wool over everyone's eyes for awhile now. The smarter ones got out early, like the big investors and mutual funds. The OEM's and add on board companies have been getting out over the last year. Maybe they started realizing that S3's products were not as good as the company was telling them and that S3's great plans were starting to unravel. First Diamond, and then STB, and now the OEM box makers. Maybe it is not just that S3 was slow to hit the AGP market, but that they were just not up to par with the other graphics companies. In the beginning they must have had great deals to lock in the sales, but as the other chip makers caught up and the OEM's and board makers started getting smart, things started to unravel. And of course the last ones to catch on are us little shareholders who are not privy to inside information and even general information that may be known in the industry. Way to late for us to get out and save our asses. And now here i am kicking myself for being so blind and greedy. There were so many signs on the wall. The biggest one was that S3 was going south while its competitors were staying even or going up. I actually jumped out once right before 2 quarters ago earnings, the ones where there was a loss without the fab. I just knew they were going to report a loss. The fab saved them and then the stocked jumped back up and i was going what the heck? I just had to jump back in, even though i knew things were going badly. And now the cat is out of the bag. At least most of my money is in the bank making a measley 4% and this was just an expensive lesson on how to get screwed. Hopefully we have all become a little smarter over this situation. I hope that we all can make this up next year in some other company while S3's management is doing time.