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Technology Stocks : WAVX Anyone? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wildman262 who wrote (4040)	9/27/1998 12:32:00 AM
From: andrew peterson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11417

Nice post, Wildman -- that's a pretty thorough and reasonable analysis of the situation, which acknowledges all the mystery and ambiguity that we're currently dealing with. I've also been thinking a lot about where things are going, spurred by the EETimes article on Intel and by the Skipstone articles on the 1394 standard -- which Intel is working toward implementing. This has more to do with the bigger picture than it will with specific deals, but I think it's important and worth thinking about. If I understand it right (and someone please correct me if I've misunderstood any of this technical stuff), what the 1394 standard is all about it a hardware-based transformation of the PC bus and cables connecting PCs and other media devices (digital video recorders, VCRs, digital TV broadcasts, etc.), which will allow the easy, fast transmission of digital media. It's worth thinking about what that means. You throw the latest Garth Brooks CD into your PC and not only can you play it but you can move its contents quickly and easily anywhere you want -- say, to a CD-recorder. You can pop in a DVD and do the same. Right now, this is still a fairly impractical thing to do. But the implication with 1394 is that without some real solid copy protection and security, all digital media starts to be similar to any text that shows up on the internet. Cut and paste, copy it where ever you want. So PCs and other digital devices need to have good, hardware-based security. And content owners need to have a really good way to sell and protect their copyrighted material. WAVX obviously has some good solid security/encryption features. But what it's really about is the second half of the equation -- selling the stuff. So back to the Intel article. There's been a lot of talk about how if WAVX isn't involved in this Intel project that it will be the death of the company. Frankly, the more I think about it, I just don't see it. First, the article says that "Intel intends to build hardware SUPPORT for data security into its CPUs and chip sets." SUPPORT is an important word there. It is not the same as PROVIDING data security. And even if Intel were building a chip which essentially mimicked the security feature of the WaveMeter, the need for the meter will still be intact and growing. So if I could summarize all this, here is how I see the equation working. Intel and others want the PC industry to move toward 1394 in order to further integrate and facilitate the merging of media. But there's no way that this can happen without solid security. So they are going to build support for security into their chips. This security may be in any number of forms. It certainly doesn't have to be the WaveMeter. But WAVX needs that security to be in place so that 1394 can get implemented, because once it is the need for a device like the WaveMeter increases tremendously. That's a long post, but I've been thinking a lot about this. I don't think we can read much of anything into this article. I don't think there's any great threat to WAVX out there yet because I don't think there's anything else out there that can do what the WaveMeter can do. I think the future looks good. Good night, all.