OK, we all know how that one played out in the stock market. Not everyone owns a network, not even Cisco. Peak does, however, which means that CobraNet becomes more valuable to Peavey, QSC, and the growing list of CobraNet licensees with every addition to the list. CobraNet also piggybacks Ethernet's improvements from 10MB to 100MB to Gigabit Ethernet, which are driven by Ethernet's status as an industry standard. You can't buy a computer today without an Ethernet port, except at a flea market or a users group swap meet.
Ethernet enjoys increasing returns to network scale.
FireWire, aka IEEE 1394, is a high-performance serial bus developed by Apple in the 90s. That project, by the way, was headed by Keio University's Yasuhiro Koike and funded by the Electronic Industries Association of Japan on behalf of the Information Technology Promotion Agency, as part of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry's Project for Common Infrastructure Development of Data Systems in the Home. The applications both inside and outside your digitally networked home of tomorrow today include all the things for which our industry is now turning to CobraNet. Digital Harmony showed a Mack truck and an SUV equipped with FireWire entertainment systems at CES, but so far their audio networking solutions have involved workarounds like RF hops for the long runs, or the hybrid IR and copper BiDAT system that helps JBL's EVO sound reinforcement systems adjust themselves to speaker placement and microphone position. Acceleration requires investment, and that's where Cirrus Logic's resources come in handy.