Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!sgi!decwrl!infopiz!lupine!rfg
From: rfg@NCD.COM (Ron Guilmette)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <2405@lupine.NCD.COM>
Date: 3 Nov 90 23:27:09 GMT
References: <15497@hydra.gatech.EDU> <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM>
Organization: Network Computing Devices, Inc., Mt. View, CA
Lines: 63

In article <42310@mips.mips.COM> mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
>Well, I guess I'm forced to respond, although I'd been trying
>to keep out of this one.  I'm trying to keep things factual, but some of
>this kind of has to verge on marketing-in-self-defense.

I just wanted to follow-up a previous posting of mine and say that (as
John Mashey has pointed out) I said some things that were entirely
unfair regarding MIPS.  I'm sorry that I said these things.

In particular, John pointed out to me that (all rumors aside) MIPS
has *not* been losing money, and in fact thay have continued to
show a profit (however small) even during these difficult times.

Also, I said that MIPS was a `one product company'.  John pointed out
to me that this might have a radically different meaning (in some
people`s minds) that what I meant.

All I meant was that (unlike Intel, which is into everything from
EEPROMS to top-of-the-line parallel processors, and Motorola, which
is into everything from celular phones to DSP's) MIPS' primary
claim to fame is their CPU chips (and, as John points out, the systems
which contain them).

The point I was trying to make was that (relative to these beheamoths)
MIPS doesn't have quite the same breadth of product lines.  Thus,
should the computer business go *really* sour, MIPS would not have
the same kind of divergent product lines that Moto and Intel have
to sustain them.  Of course, as John also rightly points out, MIPS
is no longer just a CPU company, and they actually do derive the bulk
of their income from selling *systems*.  Also, they seem to have signed
up a lot of big players for their architecture.  These facts bode well
for MIPS' long term survival even if a very steep downturn should occur.

In a private E-mail message, John pointed out to me that my characterization
of MIPS as a `one product company' might be misconstrued (by some) to
infer that `they hit one home run, and that's all they will ever get'.

Anyway, that's most certainly *not* what I meant to say.  They have
already hit several home runs.  I just meant that they are strictly
in the CPU business (and, much to my surprize, the systems business
in a big way).  They don't make celular phones and the don't make
large scale parallel processors or EEPROMS.

(Come to think of it... maybe they like it better that way. :-)

I just wanted to set the record straight.

Now I'm sorry that I ever even joined in this argument about who is
winning and who is losing the RISC wars.  I hope that everybody wins.
When there are lots of competitors (as now) and lots of healthy
competition, the biggest winners are the customers and the computer
industry as a whole.

	Yea verily, let us not hasten back to those sad times when
	a giant blue shadow darkened the landscape in all directions
	for as far as the eye could see.
						-- anon

-- 

// Ron Guilmette  -  C++ Entomologist
// Internet: rfg@ncd.com      uucp: ...uunet!lupine!rfg
// Motto:  If it sticks, force it.  If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.