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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rarebird who wrote (42659)	12/18/1997 12:53:00 AM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Rarebird, Pricing pressures will diminish in the second half of 98 and I think we will see a return to some more explosive growth. If anything happens with pricing preasure, it will intensify. There may be an explosive unit growth, but ASPs will go down. Even on the highest end chips. Joe

To: Rarebird who wrote (42659)	1/3/1998 4:19:00 PM
From: stak	Respond to of 186894

1998:Year of the set-top box and DVD. 1998 is looking to be the year when DVD makes a real impact on the entertainment dollar spent by consumers. After a false start in 1996 and 1997 DVD should come crashing into both the computer's and tv consumer's worlds with a very noticeable impact. The increasing library of DVD movie software titles is comforting to see. Computer software is starting to go on sale too. Also the set-top box will be out for the perusal of the public. Exactly what configuration the STBs are sold in is the question. Do even the top cable executives know that at this time? I don't think even they have a firm idea yet. I sure don't. Will the STB have a cable modem in it? Not likely as a standard feature., How about the cpu in it? What power is necessary to make the grade? What will the box do for me.-- Let's wait for the cable world to tell us themselves what this glorious thing can do. The cable companies have agreed to a 15 million unit deal with General Instrument so things must be getting close to introduction time. I'm not holding my breath though. Back to MSFT and INTC. Earlier in 1997 Microsoft made an offer of it's Windows CE and Windows NT to be the STB's O/S. To which TCI's CEO Malone replied, "We would be very foolish to allow that to happen. Bill has to accept that he cannot have quite the dominance in supplying our industry that he has developed in supplying the PC industry." So it appears that OpenCable will set a standard that doesn't exclude Microsoft but at the same time doesn't sell its soul either. What a concept! Good luck CableLabs. It doesn't work in the PC world though does it?!( telling MSFT no thanks I mean.) And where does WebTV fit in all this? How does Microsoft get its hands into the DVD end of things? That one I don't know. Any thoughts on that one? -pc software obviously-and??? Intel on the other hand could get into DVD in a bigger way by taking a large stake in CUBE. Both being in chip design, this could be a good "fit". It's hard to beat CUBE's MPEG2 encode technology. Intel has to admit softDVD is a ways off yet(why are they bothering anyway??). Go on bite the bullet and put the bucks down, pluck CUBE off the rack. Don't video phones work better with MPEG compression? If you can't fatten the pipes then you better compress the data. Intel will also definitely have a stake in whatever cpu that is chosen to go into STBs. Intel will make sure that thy are the prefered cpu in STBs. Intel Inside will be seen on top of the tv soon. In the DVD and STB markets I see Intel as having a significant advantage over Microsoft and it could be bigger too if only they... The consumer will be the big winner by having more choices than at any time preceding.