Transmeta (Semiconductor) (TMTA)

[weaksidehelp]

TDOG, TMTA was in the licensing business and got out of it. This is from memory, but somewhere early on, eg, 1997, TMTA entered into license agmts with IBM and Toshiba under which the licensees were able to manufacture and market Crusoe chips. For the period of 1997 or so up to the IPO, the company's revenues came mostly from license fees.

In filing the registration statement for the IPO (in the fall of 200) TMTA announced that it was no longer interested in licensing its technology and was going to be the sole mfg and marketer of Crusoe chips. It then bought back the licenses from IBM and Toshiba, and it may well be the case that it is still paying the buy-back fees (adding to the overhead at present).

regads, wsh