Texas Instruments Inc has issued a statement saying it doesn’t know what all the fuss about 1394 FireWire licensing is about. TI helped co-developed 1394 with Apple Computer Inc in the early 1990s, and says it has a clear legal position for TI and our customers for current and future generations of 1394 silicon. It doesn’t expect to see silicon price increases, and says current price reductions are fueling a thriving 1394 market. TI is thought to have negotiated a one-time payment to Apple covering patented technology for the high-speed serial interface for multimedia devices in the early days, and so it and its customers aren’t affected by recent Apple moves to up the royalty charges for the technology. In any case, those arguments may soon be resolved by the recent establishment of a patent pool between Apple and other 1394 development companies (CI NO 3,604). TI, which wasn’t part of that announcement, claims to produce the vast majority of 1394 silicon solutions in the market today, and says its customers are building millions of 1394-enabled devices every quarter. By the end of 1999, we anticipate that 10% of all PCs will be shipping with 1394 (approximately 8 million PCs). We are now starting to see sub-$999 1394 DV camcorders in the US and Japan.
TI SAYS LICENSING WON’T AFFECT ITS FIREWIRE CUSTOMERS
