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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gbh who wrote (54797)	4/6/1999 1:34:00 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Gary - (...So once a company like a Nokia, or Ericcson chooses a DSP on which to base their PCS phones, they can't easily switch, because of the software base...) This is also an oversimplification. For the high product volumes that these companies would be designing for, the key goal is production cost, and the software base is secondary, as long as it doesn't harm time to market. In fact, I would be surprised if the companies do not use their ability to support multiple software bases on different hardware platforms to help negotiate the best possible production contracts. At the time of production, a DSP is still a digital IC and will share the cost trends of other processors. It is not a commodity because it can not be cost competed at the time of production by the purchasing department, but the competition still occurs at the design stage. Regards, Don

To: gbh who wrote (54797)	4/6/1999 3:36:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Gary, the same argument was made about Flash a couple of years ago. It simply doesn't fly, and here is why. The big buyers of DSPs are often cos that produce chips and the software that goes into them. The reason they haven't produced their all of their own requirements is because they had bigger fish to fry. Those fish are now rancid and they are willing to scale into smaller chip niches, like DSP, to try to make a profit. So, you add this new capacity to the coming communications tech slowdown, and you have a disaster brewing for a few very overpriced stocks. MB