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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold vs Rambus -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Green who wrote (69)	9/10/1998 2:04:00 PM
From: William Jones	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186

Hello Hope this helps. Pulled this from Forbes. GEOFF TATE IS LIVING PROOF that you can be dull and still run a dynamic company. That's not dull as in "dim-witted" but as in "unflamboyant." "He is not Mr. Charisma by any stretch of the imagination," says venture capitalist Bill Davidow, who pegged Tate as CEO of Rambus in 1990. "He is proof of the fact that if you produce results, people pay attention." Among those heeding this 43-year-old chief executive are those on Wall Street. Last year's 52-week high for the company was more than $86-impressive, considering that underwriter Morgan Stanley priced Rambus shares at $12 when the company went public in May 1997. The stock's first close was a noteworthy $30.25. Why all the institutional interest? Rambus is the leading provider of an interface technology that eliminates bottlenecks in microchip performance. It has licensing deals with the 13 biggest DRAM companies in the world. Its technology is in approximately 1% of all DRAMs now, but is predicted to end up in nearly 50% of the memory devices by 2001. Need more convincing? Revenues jumped from $11 million in 1996 to $26 million in fiscal '97. The understated Tate deserves credit for this success. Sure, the technology is great, and Rambus defined its market-something that virtually guarantees a company will be dynamic. But by all accounts Tate turned a technology into a viable company. Says investor Davidow, "He is the best president of any startup that I've ever worked with. He is probably the most no-bullshit guy in the business, aside from Andy Grove." That means a stripped-down personal and management style. Tate is more likely to show up in his Mountain View, California, office cubicle wearing a polo shirt than a tie; United Airlines once sent him a letter complaining that a Rambus employee sat in first class in shorts and sandals "with newspapers all over the place." The "employee," of course, was Tate. His casual dress is more than just comfortable. It's deliberate. A 10-year veteran of Advanced Micro Devices (where he was a senior VP), Tate despises big-corporate culture: "Too easy to get defocused," he says. He believes effective management is direct, no-frills. So the 7-year-old company has just 140 employees, more than 75% of whom are engineers. No one, Tate included, has an administrative assistant. He favors email over meetings, although he organizes weekly breakfasts with random employees to push, prod, and motivate. Yet few of Tate's management techniques have human-resources overtones. He likes to hire "people he can fire, as in guided missile, and forget," says Dave Mooring, vice president and general manager of Rambus's PC division. Hyperorganized, he lets no detail escape him. "His interaction with employees is not left to chance," says vice president and general manager of the logic products division Subodh Toprani. Says Tate: "I'm an introvert. I don't rant and rave and do a lot of rah-rah. I say, 'We're closing in on this deadline,' or 'Let's get this done this week.' I suppose some people might say I'm a little pushy." That doesn't seem to matter for now. Turnover at the company hovers around 1%, thanks to near-flawless execution and Rambus's stock price. Tate will have to give up his micromanagement style as the company grows, though, and some employees openly worry that he will find that difficult. He won't if he's smart. With a 5.6% ownership stake, Tate is worth more than $60 million when the stock trades in the $50 range. And one analyst told us he expects the price to double this year. -David Raymond

To: Don Green who wrote (69)	9/10/1998 2:17:00 PM
From: William Jones	Respond to of 186

A little more on Rambus from last year, Forbes again. Is Rambus this year's Iomega? By Kambiz Foroohar On Friday August 15, the stock market nose-dived sharply after months of rising. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 243 points and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 24 points. Amidst all the carnage, one stock, Rambus (RMBS) defied the downward trend, and edged 1 9/16 higher to close at 69 1/2. As its devotees know, the Mountain View, Calif. chip technology company, is not your average stock. On its first day of trading last May, it soared 152% from $12 to $30.25. The stock price has continued its upward trajectory even on scant news. In just two weeks, at the end of July, this Rambo of stocks shot up 30 points before cooling off a little bit. At its current market price, Rambus has a market value of $1.6 billion. Not bad for a seven-year old firm with a total of 138 employees that expects to earn 4 cents a share this year. Forget about applying normal financial reasoning to this stock. After all, Rambus is now selling more than 1,700 times its 1997 earnings and 347 times 1998 earnings. You think price to earnings ratios are not meaningful. How about revenues? At current values, Rambus is valued at 132 times revenues. Granted the memory chip market is huge. Worldwide sales of semiconductors are expected to more than double to $290 billion by the year 2000 from $137 billion in 1996. At these rates, analysts expect Rambus revenues to reach $100 million from $11 million last year. Rambus specializes in technology that lets memory chips transfer data to processor and graphics chips up to ten times faster than conventional technology. End users include Nintendo's 64-videogame system, Silicon Graphics' work stations, Gateway's and Micron Technology's PCs. The company is a virtual corporation in that it doesn't manufacture anything but makes money on royalties from its proprietary technology that semiconductor makers such as Cirrus, NEC, Samsung and Toshiba use to hook up transistors in their chips. Even Intel has agreed to use its chip-communications technology. But Intel however will not pay off until 1999. But does all this justify a price to earnings multiple of 347 times 1998 earnings? To their credit, Rambus officials admit that their stock is in the "nosebleed" territory. "We can't explain it shrugs Chief Executive Geoff Tate. "We do have a two-year lead over our rivals." There are worrying signs that Rambus is this year's Iomega. In case you can't remember, Roy, Utah-based Iomega has a nifty little technology making a computer peripheral called Zip drive that was going to revolutionize the computer industry. A zip drive is an external disk drive whose memory disks hold 70 times more data than a conventional floppy disk. In 1995 Iomega was the single hottest stock on Nasdaq, jumping from $3 a share to $50, with a P/E multiple of 160. What pushed Iomega higher and higher was the devoted band of individual investors, communicating on online message boards such as the Motley Fool. The stock's volatility became a cause celebre in the stock trading community and eventually the company moved from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange in 1996 where its price has stayed in the low twenties. Iomega still dominates the zip drive market but its valuation is more realistic as to what it is worth. No matter how great its technology, can Rambus' current valuations be justified? Rob Chaplinsky, analyst at Humbrecht & Quist, one of the underwriters of the Rambus IPO has no doubts. "Rambuses are the nutrasweet of semiconductors," Chaplinsky beams. "They are causing a dislocation in the industry. Rambus is an infrastructure play." Just like Iomega was supposed to be? Chaplinsky finds the comparison not so amusing. But online message boards are buzzing with excitement. One message posted on Silicon Investor eagerly awaited more price rises. "The $85 amount would be very disappointing indeed if RMBS technology became the standard. I don't think most of the investors establishing positions early on would be happy with a quick $30/share or so." Stock market historians would be quick to point out that such bubbles inevitably will burst. As did the original Dutch tulip bubble.

To: Don Green who wrote (69)	9/10/1998 2:52:00 PM
From: William Jones	Respond to of 186

Hi again, Recent news Sept. 2 / 98 Tanisys Announces Agreement to Provide Direct Rambus Memory PR Newswire - September 02, 1998 12:17 AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Tanisys Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: TNSU) a leading supplier of build-to-order custom products for PC manufacturers, announced today that it has signed an agreement with Rambus Inc. (Nasdaq: RMBS) to design, manufacture and sell Direct Rambus(TM) RIMM(TM) memory modules using Direct Rambus DRAMs. Tanisys management believes that this agreement positions Tanisys to become a leading provider of memory products utilizing Rambus Direct RDRAM devices, which are broadly perceived as a standard of the future. Direct Rambus technology delivers 1.6 gigabytes per second of peak bandwidth from a single device, the DRAM industry's highest level of performance to date. "Intel and Dell already have publicly supported the Rambus architecture for future product plans," said Chuck Comiso, Tanisys CEO and President. "We believe this indicates that the market is likely to standardize on Rambus memory in the future. This Agreement helps set the stage for Tanisys to become a leader in the manufacture of Direct Rambus memory modules. It also will enable our semiconductor partners who are Rambus licensees to benefit from our expertise." "Tanisys Technology's strength in module design, manufacturing and particularly testing is a welcome addition to our list of partners and will help make Rambus technology the standard, mainstream memory," said Allen Roberts, Vice President and General Manager of the Memory Technology Division at Rambus Inc. "The addition of Rambus to our module lineup comes as computer makers are urgently seeking a solution to the performance roadblocks from current memory architectures," said Dr. Joe Klein, Vice President of Engineering for Tanisys. "Rambus technology overcomes those limitations, and for that reason we expect widespread Direct Rambus use in PC desktops beginning in 1999, with use in notebooks and servers thereafter." "Tanisys is on track to develop its engineering and manufacturing capabilities to support Direct Rambus as we expect this technology to be a considerable share of the memory module market by 2001," said Mario Morales, Director of Semiconductor Research at IDC. Tanisys plans to begin sampling modules in multiple sizes later this year, with volume production ready for 1999. The modules will be manufactured with new equipment optimized for Rambus in Tanisys' facilities in Austin, Texas and Glasgow, Scotland. Tanisys Technology, Inc. is a leading provider of customer-driven, quality computer products, as well as technical and logistical services to the electronics industry. Its outsourcing services include production order management and fulfillment. Tanisys products include the market-leading DarkHorse memory testers (SIGMA3, SIGMA2, SYNCLC and SIGMALC), memory modules and Tanisys Touch patented touch technology. For more information, visit Tanisys Technology's website at tanisys.com. Rambus Inc., based in Mountain View, California, develops and markets high-speed, chip-to-chip interface technology that enables semiconductor memory devices to keep pace with faster generations of processors and controllers. Direct Rambus technology will enable the DRAM industry's highest level of performance to date -- 1.6 gigabytes per second of peak bandwidth from a single device -- and will span multiple generations of DRAM devices (through 1-gigabit densities). Currently, 14 DRAM manufacturers (which supply more than 95% of the world's DRAM market) are committed to deliver Direct RDRAM devices and 28 companies are developing Direct Rambus logic chips. Certain matters discussed in this Press Release may constitute forward- looking statements within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and, as such, may involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from the results implied herein. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements made in the Press Release. SOURCE Tanisys Technology, Inc. /CONTACT: Joe Davis, Investor Relations of Tanisys Technology, Inc., 512-335-4440, or E-mail: InvestorRelations@tanisys.com; or Allison Clark, ext. 256, or Linda Muskin, Ext. 275, both of S&S Public Relations, 847-291-1616, or E-mail: allison@sspr.com, for Tanisys Technology, Inc./ /Web site: tanisys.com