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Technology Stocks : Diamond Multimedia -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Matt Kaarlela who wrote (3899)	12/16/1998 11:52:00 AM
From: joel3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4679

I believe that TDFX and DIMD have already discussed merging. The response from TDFX was that the management styles were incompatible. Anyone else notice Dell's latest desktops are almost exclusively STB? Any feeling why Dell went with STB? How strong is that relationship? Personally, I had to return a Dell system a few months ago partly because the 128ZX card was inherently incompatible with the rest of the system. (The infamous vertical lines problem.) Joel

To: Matt Kaarlela who wrote (3899)	12/20/1998 1:33:00 PM
From: Andrew Fenic	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4679

I see no way 3DFX/STB would merge with Diamond. 3DFX already tried to do that merger and the deal fell through. On the bright side, I think that Diamond gains a big competitive advantage from that merger. 3DFX/STB will likely phase out their Nvidia-based video cards. Who will become the lead supplier of Riva TNT cards? My bets are on Diamond as Viper is a strong well respected brand name. If Nvidia keeps beating 3DFX at product development, that leaves 3DFX/STB a second class player in 12 months with Diamond and Creative competing for the market. The only catastrophe would be if Creative buys out Nvidia. I doubt that will happen, though. I think Nvidia realizes that with the 3DFX deal they are better off as an independent chipmaker -- for the simple reason that without 3DFX Nvidia is at present the only competitive choice as a chip supplier for the multitude of cardmakers. Even if Nvidia does get scarfed up, the long term prospects aren't that bad as 3D chipmakers are all rapidly approaching parity. Within 12 months I would suspect Diamond and other board makers will have a wealth of high power chips to choose from. The battle then becomes one of OEM relationships and brand name. Diamond does well there.