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

To: Scott Garee who wrote (9595)	12/14/1998 12:46:00 PM
From: gbh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

More reasons to not like this. Scott, I neither like nor dislike this deal, as I hold no position in either company, but I would like to comment on some of your points. Now if you want TDFX you will have to buy STB products. So much for competition bringing the price down. As a shareholder of TDFX (I assume you are), why would you want OEMs constantly pushing on your company to deliver lower priced chips? My understaning is that DIMD, et all, are adding little value (in the way of enhanced drivers). In fact, these OEMs are currently using the TDFX reference driver, virtually intact. Therefore, if no value is added, why let them reap any benefits? Instead of 3 to 8 boards taking up space on the shelves, all with TDFX' logo on them there will only be one (per product). I agree, and this seems like a positive thing to me. Will developers be as TDFX-centric when it is a private label board? This was only important when developers were writing to the 3dfx specific GLIDE API. Now, OpenGL and Direct3D are the standard APIs, so the underlying HW is largely irrelevant to the app developer. I guess this means TDFX has wholly become OEM focused. Retail is way down the list. Why would you say this. STB is a very prominent name is retail. My own comments: With this deal, it is apparent to me that the independent graphic chip developers are having a very tough time, eeking out profits at the chip level. I might look for CREAF to make a play for Riva. Obviously, emulation of the ATI business model (this company actually makes good money) is what TDFX is looking to do. The market would be left with ATI, TDFX, CREAF and Matrox as the major board/chip suppliers.