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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chip Anderson who wrote (7353)	9/17/1998 4:00:00 PM
From: Simon Cardinale	Respond to of 16960

Stock buyback. With a loss projected for this quarter, they probably need to hold onto their cash so their R&D and marketing doesn't suffer. Now is the time to turn niche importance into widespread acceptance. Simon

To: Chip Anderson who wrote (7353)	9/17/1998 4:01:00 PM
From: Curbstone	Respond to of 16960

Cast Iron is sooo, uh, 2D. I say we upgrade to Chrome stomachs. Mike

To: Chip Anderson who wrote (7353)	9/17/1998 4:31:00 PM
From: Patrick Grinsell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

No offense Chip but Rampage doesn't exist and neither does Banshee2. Trying to guess at feature sets and release dates is a futile experience. Plainly put, 3dfx hasn't seen fit to tell us anything and so we must have faith that they will execute. "The Ball" as you put it should be on making money not making Rampage. It's unclear to me whether a buy back would help 3Dfx deliver Rampage on time or not Buybacks are about shareholder value. LONG TERM shareholder value. This is something of which I'm acutely aware of right now. I've tried the "trust me" method and baby, it ain't workin'. delivering Rampage in a timely manner and with a killer feature set should be Priority One in my opinion. The number one priority of any company, not just 3dfx, is delivering shareholder value. If Rampage meets that end then great but at the current point in time we have NO DATA to analyze it as a positive or negative. If 3dfx wants to remain quiet about the roadmap then fine, but as a shareholder I demand to be compensated for the extra risk. I must ask myself is the extra risk worth all they extra money 3dfx might make by keeping quiet? I'm hard pressed to find an argument that says 3dfx will make anything extra at all with this scenario. As a matter of fact, the lack of marketing may lose sales altogther. Also, all the hush hush certainly doesn't have any analysts beating down their door. Once again, the lack of shareholder value. The only short term pop I'm looking for is a short term pop in the ass to management. Pat

To: Chip Anderson who wrote (7353)	9/17/1998 4:38:00 PM
From: Waldeen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

Chip, Agree. What is most important for 3dfx is to execute, not buy backs. I have owned a lot of companies over the years and been through my share of buy backs. IMO buy backs from a long term holder's perspective are nothing but stop-gap. I've never had a stock I owned jumped significantly, and hold the jump, long term from a buy back. A buy back is good to force a bottom, and agree with Sun that they should then time the buy back. As of late, Xlinix has been doing this with their buybacks. And that stock tends to have strong support at $30-$32 a share. And, they are a semiconductor company by the way. Personally, would rather see 3dfx do a stock buy-out of 3dlabs at this point and take out some of the competition. Also, they could deduct a considerable amount of "good-will" from such a purchase. Anybody want to comment? 3dlabs stock price is now at a heavy discount, and they already have the OEM parts and agreements. Plus, they add another potentially high margin CAD market. SIII does not have a strong enough high-end pipeline of products to stay of ahead of the competition. ATY 'thinks' they are dominate, and frankly if their shares weren't sold in Toronto I would short them now. Would like to comment, though, that 3dlabs probably screwed themselves by entering the OEM market. This has me worried about 3dfx doing the same thing. As soon as 3dlabs diverted attention to the Permedia series, they went down the tubes. Evans and Sutherland caught up to them in the CAD world: bad move. 3dfx had better stay focused on putting out the best gaming cards around and use OEM only as a steady cash flow (and for continued sales of older parts). Anything that diverts from that is detrimental. Waldeen So how do you guys find so much time to write these posts anyway?