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Technology Stocks : IDTI - an IC Play on Growth Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Darrell D. Conrade who wrote (4859)	11/21/1997 12:52:00 AM
From: Rob S.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11555

I agree completely. When there is a major cost benefit and no real technical or strategic advantage for going with a sole source situation, after all, Intel has helped Compaq, IBM's competitors take a large part of their market away from them, then you at least want viable competitors to offset the leverage the dominant supplier has in your business. IDT has little leverage with the C6 at this point except price. It is lower power and lower cost than Intel portable versions of Pentium procesors but the entry is coming at a point that the market is starting to shift toward even higher speed versions. I think that IDT should put in the "effort of a lifetime" to get the C6 ramped into high volume quickly. Make the customer "an offer they can't refuse" based on the ability to produce the parts cheaply. That would get the broadest attention in the marketplace that would be worth millions in advertising and promotion that would need to be spent otherwise to build brand recognition and "market presence". In nine to 12 months the C6 will be obsolete except for embeded procesor or overseas low-end requirements where cost is the main thing. By getting something going with the C6, they will gain a head start for the C6+. IDT has many new products that they can go after with C6 derivative parts. The market is getting more and more fragmented and optimiziation for particular applications will be the winning formula. Glenn Henry's team did a great job of getting a very commendable part into production in a very short time and on an extremely low budget compared to its rivals. Now they need to do more to make it a success. Maybe they are doing all of this already and more, but, on the other hand, it might end up as another Fusion memory wonderbust that doesn't amount to enough to move the bottom line significantly. I think I'll try again tommorow to call IDT. This time I'll ask to speak with Perham or someone else in management and will ask why their VP of IR doesn't return his calls.