Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!winchester!mash
From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <42483@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 29 Oct 90 19:44:09 GMT
References: <1536@ftc.framentec.fr> <1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz> <15497@hydra.gatech.EDU> <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM> <PCG.90Oct28162504@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk>
Sender: news@mips.COM
Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
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In article <PCG.90Oct28162504@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk> pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

>Well, MIPS has got the DEC account. That is by itself interesting;
>actually *very* interesting; and DEC is selling fairly well, even if
>other parts of the company are doing not so well. After all, as some
>business weekly suggested some time ago, MIPS' business is basically
>technology licensing, like Adobe, not products.
About 70% of our business comes from product, about 30% from
technology.  This is public knowledge, and I say it all the time
in public talks.
It would REALLY BE GOOD, if people who don't understand
the business stopped making definitive claims about it....
>
>
>mash> We do have 700+ people, and have done >$100M so far in 1990.
>mash> (This is NOT big, of course, but it's not a little 1-product
>mash> company.)
>
>This is *miniscule*. Many regional car dealerships, or Coca Cola
>distributors, or McDonald's licensees, have substantially higher
>turnovers and profits in the USA. Naturally it is interesting that MIPS
>are doing 100M/700 == 150K dollars per employee on average.  That they
>are not posting huge profits is simply a miracle (I know better of
>course).
Actually, the $100M/700 is NOT the way anyone computes $/employee.
You have to compute $(year)/(average number of employees), which
of course gave something like $200K or more per employee last year.

>mash> As is well-known, we are working hard with our colleagues at
>mash> B.I.T. to improve yields on the ECL chips.
>
>In the latest issue of Byte I read that BIT have *dumped* the R6000
>development. Am I hallucinating? .....
Yes, or Byte is.
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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