“Transmeta Corp.’s initial public offering Tuesday may have been
a success, with the stock nearly doubling in value, but the news
for the Silicon Valley startup wasn’t all good as reports swirled
that Compaq Computer Corp. had withdrawn plans to use Transmeta’s
chips — reports the PC maker derided as “ludicrous.”
“Citing unnamed sources, the reports alleged that Compaq
canceled plans to feature the chip in its Armada notebook line. The
news took on added significance coming just a week after IBM
officials confirmed that the company had delayed plans, first
announced in June, to introduce Transmeta’s low-power 600MHz Crusoe
chip in a new ThinkPad 240 later this year.”
“But Compaq executives strongly denied assertions they had
canceled any Crusoe plans.”
“That’s totally inaccurate,” said one Compaq executive Tuesday.
“Despite all the noise today, Compaq has not made any decisions
in the last few weeks that would support the contentions made by
anonymous sources in news reports.“