While this may be more meaningful to the computer techy types around here it DOES affect everyone reading this (if for no other reason that you are almost certainly using a computer to read this).
Here’s a link to the article that’s got me riled:
http://www.kickassgear.com/TodaysNews.htm
On the linked page is a link to the press release from Rambus itself on this issue.
The quick and dirty of it all is that the average shmo (you and me) will get to pay MORE money for computer memory for NO other reason than to line the pockets of a few stockholders!
For the non-techy people a quick lesson in the state of the computer memory industry:
While CPU’s have increased in speed over the last decade computer memory speed has had nowhere near the same speed increases. While there was a time that memory speed far outstripped CPU speed that has begun to reverse itself with memory frequently being a limiting factor in computer performance. To address this Intel and Rambus Inc. developed a proprietary memory system dubbed RDRAM (Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory – the ‘S’ in SDRAM stands for Synchronos) to replace the current SDRAM standard.
RDRAM was hailed as the saving grace of computer memory for the next generation of computers…speed, bandwidth, supposed to have it all. There are a few problems with it however:
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It is insanely expensive (3-5x the cost of ‘regular’ SDRAM).
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It actually performs WORSE than plain old SDRAM.
(one source – http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/00q2/000403/index.html )
Consumer Quiz: You have product A and product B. Product A costs $200 and product B costs $1,000. Both products server the same purpose but product A performs NOTICEABLY better. Which one do you buy?
If you picked product B give me a call…I have a few things I’d like to sell you.
Needless to say product B doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it in the maketplace.
If you read the link above you’ll see that Rambus has taken a different path to boost their product since it is failing in the marketplace. Basically their thinking is, “If RDRAM is so damn expensive compared to SDRAM let’s make SDRAM cost MORE!” Screw lowering your own prices OR making a better product!
I’m totally bummed Toshiba caved on this. While it may make a lot of business sense for them they are letting Rambus press some bullshit patents (I’ll look for cites on that but yes…Rambus is stretching to press these patent claims).
I’ve long been a believer in the free-market system but this is one of the worst cases of circumventing the system I’ve seen in a long time and it SUCKS!
