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trillium

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Alias Born 03/27/2001

trillium

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Re: None

Thursday, 04/05/2001 10:15:00 AM

Thursday, April 05, 2001 10:15:00 AM

Post# of 93814
I talked with Robert yesterday: A good one!

I’m aware of some of recent concerns expressed on the boards and wanted to obtain some explanations. Orygun_gal posted the following email from Hy-tek which raised concerns about the availability of the Treo. http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=EDIG&read=653926

Thank you for your interest in the Treo! Unfortunately we are not going to
be able to start shipping as soon as we'd hoped, due to the availability of
some of the components for the Treo. However, we do expect to be shipping the Treo in about 2 months.

Robert's comment was that “Hy Tec made a mistake specifying a date and now they are trying to distance themselves.” (Note: His remarks are no different than 2 weeks ago when I spoke with him. I said it then ( http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=EDIG&read=643488 ) and I’ll say it again, Now hear this people...Back Off! ) He also said “I understand why everyone is so anxious to get their hands on a player but the introduction of a player doesn’t happen overnight. We have product in production now and we are still sending it out to reviewers.”

I asked him about the 500 pre production PJB’s and if they were all of the Treo variety or if they represented designs of other OEM’s. He said “I can’t go there.” I asked about the timing of the reviews. Suggesting “Would Fleishman Hillard coordinate the reviews to coincide with the introduction of the players.” Robert said that OEM’s would not do what Hy Tek had done and try and anticipate product availability. They will wait until the pipeline is full before they introduce their players.” (Note, My take is that Robert's response to my second question indicated an answer to my first question even though he couldn’t go there.)

I moved on to the next issue. I brought up Zibel’s report (http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=EDIG&read=651057) and some of the concerns many have expressed on the board. Robert said “eDigital had other platforms displayed at CeBit but they didn’t feel comfortable announcing them because they didn’t have any control or representation there. They felt very comfortable with the IBM announcement because there were two IBM representatives that were responsible for showing and meeting with OEM’s. There were only 2 prototypes there and some of the time they were on the floor, at other times they were being presented to OEM’s in private meetings. Zibel (he used his real name) just timed it wrong.”

The other concern Zibel expressed was the issue of Eastech not having any OEM’s signed up other than themselves for the PJB. Robert said “There’s a couple of explanations of what probably happened. Zibel (again he used his name) is Belgin and although he speaks very good English he was communicating with someone from Taiwan. Not everyone working for Eastech would be privileged to that information. Some of these people are representatives but don’t have the background.” He assured me that Eastech had OEM’s on board.

I asked him about the Nomad discounting and what he felt about it. He said. “I think it’s an exciting development. It moves the market ahead. What is needed is for the PJB to retail for 199 - 299 in order to open things up. They will be offering the current version at 399 and the modified version for 269. We don’t know what features they will offer yet but we’re sure our OEM’s can compete.” He went on to explain the advantages we’ve all heard before....fewer parts, less cost, etc. I interjected, I remember Fred’s comments at the shareholders meeting when he talked about the Treo retailing for $300 + or - $25 and feeling a bit disappointed when the suggested retail would be 399. He said “ It’s what they (Hy Tek) felt the market would bare. It will be interesting to see how they respond. They should have no problem competing”

Lastly I asked about a remark Fred had made in the Letter to the shareholders. I read the following from the report as I went along I counted (# )
“Following our business plan, we have dedicated strategic engineering resources to the development and implementation of new product platforms that include digital video for portable devices (ONE), automotive and home stereo designs (TWO), cellular phone
accessories(THREE), and set-top boxes.(and FOUR) We are working with multiple OEMs on specific applications of these MicroOS- and MicroCAM-powered platforms for inclusion in a
variety of branded products.”

I asked does this mean we will be announcing 4 new product platforms in this quarter and will they have working prototypes and OEM’s to go along with them?

He said “All the above” Then he went on to explain “With these platforms they could then take different OEM’s proprietary designs and incorporate them into the platform to enable different features.”

I asked one more question. “ Several months ago you said we were working with double digit OEM’s. Is that still true?

His answer. “We’ve been adding since then”

I want to conclude with my boilerplate safe harbor statement. These forward looking comments are brought to you by the sometimes fallible listening abilities of the phoner. The phonee takes no responsibility for actually saying what the phoner thought he heard. On this occasion the phonee was returning my call making him the phoner and me the phonee. In neither case does this
make either one of us a phony. Larry

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