This may be the last of Matrox.

**X-Reaper** · 10-29-2002, 12:36 AM

http://forums.matroxusers.com/showth...threadid=37155

More On The State Of Matrox
Discussion about the editorial named above and found at www.matroxusers.com is to be directed in this thread.

The last editorial has benefitted me with many responses and I appreciate every one. I have just got this in my inbox, and I would like to share it with you. Before you read, be aware that I have confirmed what was written before and had planned on writing about this as well. Since I got the email, I thought this would be the prime time to attack it.

*snip

while I don't really care much anymore for matrox..
the company, *snip*

the people there are great though.. the best bunch of guys I ever worked with..

*Snip*

in the last set of lay-offs most of the support was decimated.. there is no longer a hardware
compatibility test group.. software testing (driver, apps, etc) is reduced to about 10 people
as usual the end user support trees were chopped.. marketing, sales, and eng. were left
untouched.. luckily tsup managed not to get cut this time..
Unfortunately Haig, and the customers are the ones who are going to suffer again since
his support tree is almost gone..

why is matrox failing..

Financially most people haven't got raises there in about 3 years, paid overtime stopped 2 years
ago, no more bonuses..and they cut all benefits by about 30% morale in the place is at the bottom. if you're still working
there it's because you just waiting for the severance package..and that's the attitude most people have there
Yet the owners donate 20million to a local university in this time of financial decline..

why is parhelia doing so poorly.. I think back to a converstation I had with one of the chief HW engs.
his quote "Most company's have a dartboard that represent that market.. we throw the dart then draw the circles"
marketing could never make up their mind what market the product would sell to.. each week they changed their
minds. so the testing/fixing priorities would keep shifting.. hence you have a product that's mediocre in all categories

Marketing doesn't talk to the outside world.. they believe that they have an inate knowledge of the products people
want.. hence we have 20 people programming "e-dualhead" and such cutting edge technology like
max headroom.. rather than working on OGL code..

Re-investment in RD is almost NIL.. if you look at anand's review of inside NVidia.. they day it was released on the
web.. matrox's asic, and HW eng teams unanimously agreed... company is finshed.. they need to invest
close to 500million to have the same setup.. if they did invest in that equipment then. parhelia would have been
released on time.. which was about 2 years ago.. it's not liek we didn't try.. we asked for and FIB machine
repeatedly starting about 4 years ago...

many good projects were dropped.. ex: video in a chipset.. they would have released it before intel.. but
it was pulled.. at 90% completion!!!! it was already taped out!! and they stopped the chip run..because
at the end they didn't think it was viable.. they even dropped the second stage low power north bridge with
video for laptops..

production goof ups.. Overproduction when it's not needed..forgetting to order parts.. hence too many 4x parhelias, and they won't sell the 8X
until the 4X is gone.. while the 8X is only 20% faster but it fixes pretty much all the problems people
are seeing in the 4X..

expierience.. there are only about 50 people in matrox that have been there more than 5 years, with the last
layoff that number has dropped, most of the guys who design the chip, and are writing the drivers have less than 3 year
expierience in doing this.. hence you always have less performance per clock than the competition.
and they don't have a single analog asic eng.. so when it comes to timings inside the asic, they always miss.
that's been the clocking issues since the G450.. and they're not willing to pay the required salary to hire this
type of engineer..

This pretty much sums up what needs fixing there (all of the mangagement).. anyone you ask will agree..
------------------------------

If they go belly up, I wonder who will scrape them up. ATi or Nvidia I would suppose.

**JethroBodine** · 10-29-2002, 09:18 AM

That is what happens to companies that don't compete in a free market- they go bankrupt.

From the sounds of things, Matrox has some "issues" within management.

**Kero-chan** · 10-29-2002, 09:30 AM

damn, that kind of sucks... more competition is always better... i was hoping the perhelia(sp?) was going to kick some major ***. i remember back in the day i had a matrox millenium2 w/voodoo2. it r0x0r3d m4h w0r1d y0! almost brings a tear to my eye T_T
i just hate that all the workers get screwed because the corporate assholes are idiots...

**ewitte** · 10-29-2002, 09:37 AM

Originally posted by Kero-chan
damn, that kind of sucks... more competition is always better... i was hoping the perhelia(sp?) was going to kick some major ***. i remember back in the day i had a matrox millenium2 w/voodoo2. it r0x0r3d m4h w0r1d y0! almost brings a tear to my eye T_T
i just hate that all the workers get screwed because the corporate assholes are idiots...

And I just saw an add for a $599 256MB parhelia

Maybe it should have been $199

**japin** · 10-29-2002, 09:43 AM

Originally posted by Kero-chan
damn, that kind of sucks... more competition is always better... i was hoping the perhelia(sp?) was going to kick some major ***. i remember back in the day i had a matrox millenium2 w/voodoo2. it r0x0r3d m4h w0r1d y0! almost brings a tear to my eye T_T
i just hate that all the workers get screwed because the corporate assholes are idiots...

wow, i had the same setup... that was the best back then agp millennium2 and that voodoo, the best of both worlds, great 2d and awesome 3d

**richardginn** · 10-29-2002, 10:05 AM

well this card is a waste unless you just had to have 3 monitor gaming and an extar 128 megs of ram might only give you a 2-3 FPS boost.

They had a shot with this card and they blew it big time and now thay are going to pay for it. It really sucks though because they were such a good company for a while.

**Beretta** · 10-29-2002, 10:06 AM

Thats the problem we all thought Matrox died when the G400 failed in the competitive market and then they suprised us with the Parhelia and then dying again. Seriously they need to just get there asses in gear and take hints from the past and present video card makers on becoming competitive and what to create to please gamers and pc enthusiast which make up more of the market then businesses do.

**irwincur** · 10-29-2002, 11:11 AM

I don't know why they ever moved into the enthusiest market - there is no way they had a chance competing against ATI and nVidia. If they would have been smart they would have made good cards for the business OEM markets and professional cards. Too bad if they go out of business but that is life.

Maybe that $500 Parhelia will be $200 when the blow out their inventories.

**ewitte** · 10-29-2002, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by Beretta
Thats the problem we all thought Matrox died when the G400 failed in the competitive market and then they suprised us with the Parhelia and then dying again. Seriously they need to just get there asses in gear and take hints from the past and present video card makers on becoming competitive and what to create to please gamers and pc enthusiast which make up more of the market then businesses do.

Next thing you know they offer some sort of bandwidth management and move over to DDRII @ 512bit using the same card

We need surprises like that

I believe the lack of bandwidth management was its main flaw.

**JethroBodine** · 10-29-2002, 02:26 PM

"Maybe that $500 Parhelia will be $200 when the blow out their inventories."

Where will you get drivers?

**FS740** · 10-29-2002, 02:46 PM

this is sad, the king of 2d is supposidly dead.

**Mr Cherry** · 10-29-2002, 03:01 PM

Originally posted by irwincur
Maybe that $500 Parhelia will be $200 when the blow out their inventories.

But by then you'll probably be able to get a Radeon 9500 or Geforce 4400 for less, and they will perform better. Matrox just shot themselves in the foot. The released a lack-luster card that had too few features than people wanted. Not to mention the price was FAR to high compared to ATI and nVidia.

**Belial** · 10-29-2002, 03:39 PM

This is just the kind of break Intel needs to get into the video card market...I hope that INTEL buys them out. I really hope that ati and NVIDA don't buy this company it's better if we get a strong 3rd player instead.

**ewitte** · 10-29-2002, 04:05 PM

Originally posted by Belial
This is just the kind of break Intel needs to get into the video card market...I hope that INTEL buys them out. I really hope that ati and NVIDA don't buy this company it's better if we get a strong 3rd player instead.

As long as it is not Microsoft

**Belial** · 10-29-2002, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by ewitte

As long as it is not Microsoft

yea no kidding...I always hope to see articles similar to this one about Microsoft. maybe one day we will get our wish and Microsoft will go belly up.

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