Welcome back Mark.
I obviously aroused your ire when I referred to RSYS, but my intention was not to suggest that RSYS is a poor investment choice. And certainly the relative performance of WIND and RSYS is irrelevant to this thread, since they operate in different sectors. The fact is I wish RSYS all the success in the world. I wish all of WIND's customers success, and a lot of other companies, too.
My point was that relative past performance is insufficient for judging future performance. So even if I was to grant that RSYS has been performing spectacularly relative to WIND, then that is not nearly enough to warrant an investment.
I am sure you will agree with me that high tech investors need to be alert to the possibility that a company must suddenly confront competition, which often negatively affects future performance. All I said was that since I don't know RSYS, I cannot assure myself that the company is adequately protected from emerging competition. For example, how did RSYS like awakening October 14 to the following announcement from Motorola?
TEMPE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 1997--Motorola Computer Group
(MCG),
>> Technical Products Division, leaders in the embedded computing market,
Tuesday
>> announced the ATXPII and NLXP55 motherboards.
>> These Pentium(R) processor-based platforms are designed specifically
for use
>> in embedded computing applications. Offering complete PC and Windows NT(R)
>> compatibility, ATXPII and NLXP55 have specialized hardware features and OEM
>> support which substantially extend their capability in real-time and
>> industrial applications.
>> "Commodity Pentium processor PC motherboards provide compatibility, but
>> often fail to meet specific embedded computing needs. CompatibilityPlus is
>> the answer our OEM customers are seeking," said Jerry Gipper, director of
>> marketing for embedded technologies at Motorola Computer Group. "Our boards
>> include dedicated timers, extended FLASH, hardware monitoring, and enhanced
>> BIOS features.
>> "Additionally, we support a stable board supply and revision management
>> program over typical OEM lifecycles, and more rigorous quality standards
>> necessary for industrial rather than consumer applications."
>> The ATXPII motherboard is based on an extended ATX form factor. Single or
>> dual Pentium II processors with MMX(TM) technology, coupled with the 440LX
>> AGPset, make ATXPII ideal for high-performance imaging applications,
>> industrial workstations and scientific/medical instrumentation.
>> Its memory architecture is based on ECC DIMMs with serial presence detect,
>> increasing system reliability and simplifying field upgrades and memory
>> configuration. Three DIMM sockets support up to 384MB of SDRAM or EDO DRAM.
>> On-board 10/100 Mbit Ethernet, multimedia audio, and Universal Serial Bus
>> (USB) interfaces free the three PCI, one shared PCI/ISA, and one Accelerated
>> Graphics Port (AGP) slots for application-specific adapters.
>> As well as providing all of the functionality expected on a
high-performance
>> PC compatible motherboard, ATXPII has a number of additional features which
>> significantly increase its real-time capability and suitability for the
>> industrial environment.
>> Six 16-bit timers are cascadable to form up to two 32-bit and two 16-bit
>> countdown timers each with 0.5 microsecond resolution. An ATA FLASH socket
>> accepts a 1.8 inch EIDE FlashDrive, allowing a complete system to be
>> integrated without a fragile rotating hard disk.
>> Hardware monitoring of temperature, power supply voltage, fan speed,
chassis
>> intrusion and battery voltage, together with a watchdog timer and E2PROM
>> backup of CMOS parameters, support high integrity OEM applications.
>> The NLXP55 embedded motherboard is based on the new NLX form factor, which
>> is ideal for embedded applications. A low profile NLX motherboard plugs into
>> an NLX riser, which carries PCI and ISA expansion slots, disk, floppy and
>> audio connectors, and the power input connector.
>> This arrangement simplifies system cabling and improves reliability. The
>> motherboard slides into the enclosure, simplifying board exchange and
speeding
>> up maintenance. Selection of the appropriate riser enables the system to be
>> tailored to fit the needs of the application.
>> A riser with limited PCI or ISA slots allows a low-profile system to be
>> configured, while risers with large numbers of slots are ideal for
>> applications such as computer telephony, which demand numerous I/O
interfaces.
>> A Pentium processor with MMX technology, teamed with 512 KB of level 2
cache
>> and the 430HX PCIset gives NLXP55 the processing power to handle
>> compute-intensive tasks such as simulation. Two ECC DIMM sockets with serial
>> presence detect support up to 256MB of EDO DRAM.
>> On-board 2D/3D graphics, 10/100 Mbit Ethernet, multimedia audio and USB
>> interfaces provide the operator interface facilities and connectivity
>> essential for many process control and automation applications. The addition
>> of interval and watchdog timers, hardware status monitoring, a CompactFLASH
>> memory socket, and BIOS FLASH for embedded code storage enable NLXP55 to meet
>> the needs of a variety of embedded applications.
>> ATXPII and NLXP55 carry an Award Software(TM) EliteBIOS with Motorola
>> enhancements, and are supported under Windows NT, including device
drivers for
>> interval and watchdog timers. Leading real-time software environments,
>> including LynxOS from Lynx Real-Time Systems, QNX(R) from QNX Software
Systems
>> Ltd., and Tornado(TM)/VxWorks(R) from Wind River Systems(R) Inc., will be
>> available for both boards.
By the way, notice that full-scale RTOS's, including VxWorks, are made available for this hot new Motorola board, so it is good for WIND. Without more knowledge about how RSYS's barriers to entry against a giant like Motorola, I would be a fool to buy the stock. No matter what you can show about past performance, I would not, can not, should not own the stock without confidence that RSYS can withstand the likes of Motorola and who-knows-what at who-knows-what-price coming out of Asia.
I believe it takes the special talent of a gifted investor, such as yourself, to sort through these issues in the sector RSYS has chosen to do business. For all these reasons, I defer to your wisdom concerning RSYS, and I wish you success with your RSYS investment.
However, since what happens to RSYS is not particularly material to WIND, it is not important to this thread to dwell on RSYS's chances of success.
Allen |
