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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (16303)	2/22/1999 11:19:00 AM
From: REH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

and....what's wrong with paying royalties if you save millions on R&D?? and on top of that must have your product fight all others in the marketplace! I'd rather pay the royalties and reduce my fixed cost and increase my variable cost tied to sales. reh

To: unclewest who wrote (16303)	2/22/1999 11:39:00 AM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

uncle, paying Royalties displaces the development risks to the developer, a very cost effective way to get into new products. The fact is that these companies often spend 10% of sales on internally developed products, half of which never materialize. Look at Gillette, they spent a billion bucks (well, $400 MM was supposedly the launching marketing blitz) to add a third blade to their shaver. I am sure they could have done it for much less by going outside and outsourcing this development. OK, I am biased, I love royalties. it makes me feel "Rexial" (VBG). Zeev

To: unclewest who wrote (16303)	2/22/1999 11:44:00 AM
From: mauser96	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

It may be that a good substitute for RDRAM is being developed somewhere in secret, and there would be no way for us to know. I do know that the most patent protection in technology have not held for long, and the more expensive the license, the more incentive for finding substitutes. Try to make a list of absolutely key patents that have held and it will be a short list -polaroid instant film, Xerox dry paper electrostatic copier,and a few others. For instance Canon held patents dominating ink jet printers, now Epson has a better product. The one RMBS should study is Dolby. AS MSFT is finding out, hubris goes before the fall. The increase in memory speed in itself isn't important - all that counts is the increase in speed of the resulting total system. I think INTC and RMBs need each other, but a threat to both is if customers decide they don't really need faster computers with RDRAM.