Re: Rambus uppcomeance

From: Robert Harley (Robert.Harley@inria.fr)
Date: Sun Mar 18 2001 - 09:28:31 PST


gg wrote:
>here's mud in your one good eye,

Well I don't feel muddy, nor do I particularly like the direction this
thread is taking but I'll reply to your points nevertheless.

>>The smarmy attitude is helpful. Basically he is saying that the [...]
>you can put it that way; it would be in keeping with your feelings that the
>laws protecting intellectual poperty are "smarmy."

Hager's attitide is smarmy. Where did you get the idea I was
referring to IP laws?

>I presume you saw this...
>[...]
> Judge Delays Hearing of Rambus's
> Patent Lawsuit Against Infineon
>
> A WSJ.com News Roundup

This is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff that, by my way of thinking,
doesn't compare to having scope of patent claims limited, and
racketeering allegations allowed.

> continuing hager:
>"Thinking long-term, we believe it is Rambus' core technology that is
>currently shipping in the Pentium 4 from Intel, as well as in a number of
>other devices, that will truly determine Rambus' outcome as a viable
>investment.

Ah, so Rambus's technology is shipping "in the Pentium 4". That reveals
what his command of the technical issues is.

>RDRAM memory has been established as a standard, and there is little
>in the way of preventing it from becoming the dominant PC standard in
>the industry.

There is also little in the way of DDR SDRAM becoming dominant, or the
two of them sharing the market.

Current chipsets for the Pentium 4 support RDRAM and not SDRAM
because of Intel's contract with Rambus which includes a few $100M
sweetener when they ship more chipsets supporting RDRAM than SDRAM for
two quarters.

Last year's Pentium III chipsets with RDRAM support didn't work out as
planned, to put it mildly. On Pentium 4, RDRAM is the only choice,
but starting in Q3 Intel intends to release Pentium 4 chipsets with
SDRAM support. The first will be non-DDR, with DDR to follow early
next year. Bye-bye Rambus's exclusivity on Pentium 4.

>In a few years, this court case will be relatively
>meaningless to Rambus' revenue stream. [...]

Of course Rambus will continue to sell/license RDRAM and draw revenue
from that. They designed it and own all the IP. This is where they
added value so it seems fitting that they should benefit from it.

However the scenario used to be that they owned critical IP on
competing technologies too, that they could charge high licensing
fees if they felt like it, that they could favour RDRAM this way and
make lots o' cash from SDRAM as well.

Its looking increasing like they will have to compete against other
memory technologies on their merits. This is good.

Bye,
  Rob.
     .-. Robert.Harley@polytechnique.org .-.
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