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

To: Curbstone who wrote (9729)	12/16/1998 12:38:00 PM
From: Jeff Lins	Respond to of 16960

Actually, the internet sales thing is something that needs to be more closely examined. Sometimes things sound crazy when you hear them the first time, but cloer examination often changes the story (Jocelyn Elders- anybody remember a few of her gems?) STBIs primary business is the OEM market- which is completely separate from retail. So the question is, how does selling direct affect our relationships with our retail customers? Well, the big distributors could probably care less. They will simply be providing for the smaller stores and system integrators. Ultimately, that end demand may change, but the relationship with the big distributors would probably not be seriously hurt (though I haven't dealt with this myself- anybody know for sure :). Now the big chains- Frys, Best Buy, etc. may not be too happy with this. The question is, how unhappy would they be? Would they be so unhappy that they wouldn't want to sell a profitable product that would likely get people in the stores? Some might. I don't know. But you have to look at the numbers. For example, Pat had a selling price of $150 with cost of $100 for V3 3000. Ok, a profit contribution of $50. Now, everybody here thinks that V3 can do what V2 did...so lets say that we can retail it for $299. The price has doubled, but our profit contribution has doubled. We can lose half our retail sales, and still make twice as much money :) That's the theory anyway :) Naturally it is somewhat flawed, but hey, ain't nothin perfect. Part of this plan assumes we could do the sales over the web. We know that the first Million customers are web/gamin savvy folks, so yes it could be done, and yes they would pay the premium. OOps..State dept,gotta go... bought some RIG today...

To: Curbstone who wrote (9729)	12/16/1998 1:54:00 PM
From: John Finley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Incompatible brick and mortar, and direct sales? I don't know but the market sure likes a company that is trying to do both - CPQ. Maybe what TDFX is shooting for is OEMs and direct retail. JF

To: Curbstone who wrote (9729)	12/16/1998 8:06:00 PM
From: Stuart C Hall	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Mike, ROTFLMAO. However, I ask that you read this multipart story from Fortune magazine regarding the future of Internet and it's effect on commerce. This may be premature for TDFX's niche but it is coming and they could be a leader into the fray. They love the bleeding edge don'tchaknow. They're in the same position as other conventional retailers deciding whether to go direct while Amazon gets a new target price of $400. Who says they "have to" undercut their prices? An online store is not terribly expensive to maintain and it gives direct feedback to TDFX!! pathfinder.com BTW, computer hardware is approximately 20% of all commerce transactions on the Web. Still here, still dazed. Stuart "Rusty Stomach" Hall PS. If you're reading this TDFX I'll do your online store. ;-) shall@echolink.net