Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Phoenix Technologies (PTEC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel D. Caldwell who wrote (2919)	11/22/1998 9:40:00 PM
From: John B. Dillon	Respond to of 3624

Daniel, "The BIOS that Compaq and IBM comes from the same code base as Intel to the greatest degree possible with limitations based on IP ownership rights and speed of proliferating new code. They pay a royalty based on volume and engineering fees to adapt the code". I read in an analysts report that Phoenix recently rewrote all of its code so it would be easily portable. Is this what you are referring to? Wasn't that one of the reasons for the high R&D costs over the last couple of years? Since the code is suppose to be so portable, how come it took so long to realize revenues from IBM? jd

To: Daniel D. Caldwell who wrote (2919)	11/23/1998 6:09:00 PM
From: Mark Brophy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3624

Re: Phoenix-Intel relationship The secondary benefits are what helps most; Intel demands features and quality that helps other customers. Not having Intel is far worse. The secondary benefits are what hurt the most. Under the terms of the Intel contract, Phoenix is required to wait 90 days before using any code developed for Intel in the BIOS of another customer. The engineers have to waste a lot of time figuring out what code can be used and the lawyers have to pore over every release to verify that the contract hasn't been breached. It's very inefficient and partly explains why Phoenix was never able to develop the economies of scale necessary to crush Award. As far as Merced; there is money to be had far in advance of the actual silicon availability. A lot of money; trust me.... Phoenix and other companies have figured out that being there ahead of everyone else has a premium that customers are willing to pay for. Merced has been delayed for 2 years and Intel has a history of propagating new technology very slowly such as USB, 1394, AGP, MMX, and I2O. Sun moves a lot faster and there's a strong possibility that they will once again thwart Intel's attempts to encroach on their turf. Merced might be a bonanza for Phoenix someday, but for now it's only speculation that has failed to show up in the bottom line. Even if it's successful, it will take a long time for the entire software industry to redesign code from single-threaded to multi-threaded. Intel couldn't propagate a minor enhancement like MMX instructions rapidly and they could fail with the larger Merced problem.