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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stoctrash who wrote (29279)	2/9/1998 4:09:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

It is priced at $315 and will be available in late October... That's from Compaq's press release dated Oct 16 1997. Just a bit over 3 months ago? MPEG1 for $315???? I doubt they sell many of those. Yes, Show me some Ziva. Viva La Ziva!!

To: Stoctrash who wrote (29279)	2/9/1998 5:26:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Notice how these Intel guys worry about software being available, when their hardware is?????????????????????? ijumpstart.com Intel Pumps Up Developer Efforts Early in Katmai Design Cycle; Broadens Focus to Include Business and International ISVs <Picture><Picture><Picture> Intel Corp. [INTC] is building bridges to content developers to ensure the successor technology to MMX is met with widespread support when it ships as part of a processor in the first half of 1999. The company is devoting two to three times as much funding and personnel to developer-relations efforts for the Katmai instruction set as it did to MMX, reaching out to independent software vendors (ISVs) focused on business applications and foreign markets. Intel wants to broaden the field of applications beyond entertainment to leverage Katmai, which consists of 70 new instructions-the most significant being floating-point improvements for better 3D. Claude Leglise, vice president of Intel's content group and director of developer relations, confirmed that the company is adhering to the same initiatives it did with MMX. Intel will guarantee several hand-picked developers funding and distribution if they reach certain milestones. Leglise likened the program to the video game business where new titles are available to meet console launches and often are bundled with the systems. In the company's role as a reseller, Intel has sold more than 10 million titles, Leglise said. Eighteen MMX titles were available at launch, and Intel is striving to have more available for Katmai. Leglise would not specify how many. MMX was moderately successful in terms of the funding efforts, but of the 12-to-15 developers participating in the program, a few had funding cut because they couldn't reach certain milestones. "The biggest surprise for me personally was the flexibility in the schedule for software development," he said. "On the hardware side we've gotten use to rigorous scheduling." Timing Is Critical To help compensate for unforeseen development delays applications creators often face, Intel is giving Katmai developers three-to-six months longer to develop titles than they had for MMX. Developers had about a 12-month development window for MMX. Processors with the instruction set showed up in PCs in January 1997 and received development systems in June 1996. For Katmai, vendors began receiving tools in the third quarter last year and will get access to processor prototypes in the middle of this year. Desktops with Katmai are expected in mid-1999. Leglise also said the company embarked on its first developer-relations effort to support MMX, and Intel has since become more organized and is employing tighter management. And the company can point to MMX, which was included in roughly 90 percent of all Intel processors a year after the company launched the instruction set in January 1997, to make its case. "With MMX, the thing that was relevant was we showed [developers] our ramp rate," said Taufik Ma, Intel ISV marketing manager. "It's more important to them than money. Now we have that credibility under our belt." With Katmai, Intel is looking beyond entertainment for developer efforts. With business PCs accounting for roughly two-thirds of all computers, Intel has good reason to want to drive processor-intensive multimedia requirements into software. But the company is realistic about how that technology will show up on the desktop and doesn't expect word-processing programs to include 3D. "I don't think we're going to turn the business desktop into a version of Quake, but there are a number of places we know of where the performance will certainly will be highly beneficial," Leglise said. He cited a few applications where added multimedia capabilities make sense: Data visualization and presentation (particularly for Internet information and product presentation), interface design and speech recognition. International Push "We started this gig three years ago with a focus on the United States and three countries in Europe," he said. "Now we have fairly good working relationships with a couple hundred developers and more like 15 countries." And Intel's international efforts go beyond funding. With the goal of generating PC- related business to sell more processors, the company organizes matchmaking efforts abroad to introduce developers to publishers and resellers. "We believe there's a huge potential market in China, India, Russia and Brazil," Leglise said. (Intel, 408/765-8080)