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Technology Stocks : ATI Technologies in 1997 (T.ATY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carnac who wrote (3279)	4/30/1999 2:19:00 PM
From: NTT	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5927

>>>yeah, I know a bit about patents. Exponential's patents (owned by S3) blow them away.<<< Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. This is not a question of whose patents are better than others. S3's acquisition of Exponentials patents were so that they could leverage Intel by threatening Merced. The Exponential patents had NOTHING to do with their current business. I know, because I worked very closely with the Exponential people when they were developing the XP704. ATI's acquisition of Chromatics gave them valuable patents and technology which would have taken several man-years to develop on their own. In addition, patents are useful for two things: a) Licensing the technology to others b) Making sure nobody else sues you for what you're doing Sometimes B is more important than A, especially given the legal headache involved in pursuing patent infringement. Your comments about Chromatics technology are also misinformed. ATI sold off the MPact division of Chromatics. What they acquired was an unannounced product and the engineers responsible for that ASIC. In turn, they have been integrating their graphics core with this powerful bridge. Preliminary reports from insiders indicate that Intel's offering is weak at best. Even from a non techinical perspective, Intels business plan left the analysts at their CC with a very unoptimistic feeling. There is no doubt in my mind that Intel will sell many Whitney's, but this will be strictly because of brand name, not because of any technical merit. IMO, it will soon follow the same fate as the i740. Everybody was hyping that before it came out too -- where is it now? Anybody who thinks that Whitney will be superior to ATI's offering is clearly delusional.

To: Carnac who wrote (3279)	4/30/1999 10:46:00 PM
From: SBHX	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5927

We are all in this to make sound investment decisions. It doesn't help any of us to want to be always right or wrong. All that matters is that our investments do perform well. Why would it make you happy if what you are saying becomes true in the 'next 2 years'. Does it make you feel better if we lose money? If you are short, I can at least understand the motivation, but I can't understand why you derive pleasure from our loss. Well if this is your attitude, then I will take great delight in watching the I-told-you-so scenario unfold over the next 2 years. How many patents have you filed? Approved? yeah, I know a bit about patents. Exponential's patents (owned by S3) blow them away. In case anyone is interested, most recently filed patents can be obtained from patents.ibm.com If you search for ATI, you'll see a total of 45 patents owned by ATI so far Here's the list of some companies and patents assigned, it does not include patents obtained by purcashing companies or IPs. ATI - 45 S3 - 33 NVIDIA - 23 Chromatic Research - 18 3Dfx - 4 Intel - 2848 International Business Machines - 22849 Search engines being what they are, I can't vouch for the results above, but if you ever run out of reading materials, here's where you can expand your horizons. Warning : most patents have very thin plots. :-) Large number of patents don't always guarantee success. Cirrus Logic - 350. However, as long as both companies are in business, patents acts as a deterrent to discourage companies from suing each other. The danger, is from companies who are winding down their operations, since they have nothing else to lose.