Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

In mid-January we reported that Rambus (ticker: RMBS) had hit on a wizard wheeze to encourage memory manufacturers (the Seven Dramurai) to make more of its chips during this year. At the time that story was written, the Rambus share price stood at around $90 or so. These were the terms that Hyundai and a couple of other memory manufacturers including NEC, were offered by the firm. If these Dramurai stepped up production of Rambus chips, they would be offered a large number of shares at the rather inexpensive price of $10 apiece. Hyundai, for example, was offered 30,000 shares, in addition to the 25,000 options it already held. As we pointed out at the time, this was clearly a tough decision for firms like Hyundai to take. We're unclear whether this particular firm took the bait, but a release from Rambus yesterday showed NEC had. Because the Japanese firm reached its milestone of shipping as many Rambus chips as it promised, it now wins a prize of 30,000 shares at "below market price". Yesterday, the RMBS share price closed on Wall Street at $413.359375, losing a total of $31 and a bit during the day, although at one point it reach $471. NEC is now the proud owner of a huge number of shares worth $12,400,781.25 at closing prices and all for making chips which it can sell at a profit. (We don't know whether NEC has any other Rambus options). This is some of what NEC said in its release: ""NEC has achieved the goal of shipping validated Rambus DRAM devices and RIMM modules in production quantities to leading OEMs," said Avo Kanadjian, vice president, worldwide marketing at Rambus Inc. "NEC is helping to alleviate the current shortage of Rambus devices and modules and is enabling OEMs to meet the high demand for Rambus-based desktop PCs and workstations." NEC is the third and final recipient of Phase 1 of the Rambus DRAM incentive program initiated last year. And this is what Rambus Ink said: ""NEC has achieved the goal of shipping validated Rambus DRAM devices and RIMM modules in production quantities to leading OEMs," said Avo Kanadjian, vice president, worldwide marketing at Rambus Inc. "NEC is helping to alleviate the current shortage of Rambus devices and modules and is enabling OEMs to meet the high demand for Rambus-based desktop PCs and workstations." Funny old business, the memory business. ® See also Rambus offers Hyundai cheapo shares to make more chips

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery