The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 8

HOW THEY CLOSED urw. wdfcmUt EAR ME 3437.29 11.95 TSE 6409.54 45.47 DOW 933995 41.32 NASDAQ 2283.60 23.05 GOLD (N.Y.) $289.50 $2.40 DOLLAR 67.27 0.01 PRIME RATE 6.75 unch SECTION Trading highlights D5 WeatherD12 Crossword D12 See World Markets on Page D5 BUSINESS EDITOR: DAVID YATES (514) 987-2512 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20. 1999 f.W.UiJlJUJlJ.llJl I. KwokYuen Ho, who founded ATI Technologies In 1985, is the toast of the tn- vestment world. Unlike Matron the Ontano firm has no problem hinng engineers.

Exports up 7.4 in '98 Chretien-led junket aims to boost trade with Middle East mm! IS Global market share Companies producing graphics chips for desktop computers. 1997 ATI S3: 33 Technologies: 29 SANDRA CORDON Canadian Press Matrox: 20 .1 3- T. A. 3Dfx: 3 Nvidia: 4 1998 "TtTfcr: itf- ATI Technologies: 37 S3: 1 i Matrox: 1 ir. co 1 II1CI tQ I 3Drx: 6 fwJfc: Ik' r.

Pirrii -utmrtT JeSSI. PHOTO BY MARCOS TOWNSEND, GRAPHICS BY JUSTIN STAHLMAN; GAZETTE Lorne Trottier holds a Matrox graphics card. Limited by its relatively small engineering staff, Matrox focuses on the corporate market. eked? CMIp wre OTTAWA There's money to be made for computer-software manufacturers exporting into the Middle East, and an expanding Calgary-based company says it's getting its share. David Ewasuik says his firm, EFA Software Services has already signed several small contracts, ranging in value from $500,000 to several million dollars, in the volatile region.

Joining Trade Minister Sergio Marchi and a Canadian trade delegation leaving tomorrow for the Middle East is merely the icing on the cake, Ewasuik said yesterday. The company provides stock-market software and back-office support, so exports far beyond North America are essential "Because it's stock-exchange software, there's only one customer per country so we do have to do a little traveling," he said from Calgary. Marchi's trade mission, which includes 44 business and government representatives, comes as new statistics emphasize the vital role trade plays in Canada's economy. EXPORTS WORTH $323 BILLION Last year, Canadian exports jumped 7,4 per cent for a total value of more than $323 billion, Statistics Canada reported yesterday Economists point out the vast and growing majority of that trade is with the United States, where a booming economy is only hinting at a possible slowdown this year. Exports to the countries and regions that Marchi's delegation will visit Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Gaza and the West Bank totalled about $1.3 billion in 1997, trade department figures indicate.

The bulk about $545 million was with Saudi Arabia. Canada does only about $1 million in trade with Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a department official said. However, that may be boosted by a framework on economic co-operation arid trade that Marchi is expected to sign with the Palestinian administrators of the West Bank and Gaza. Over-all, Canada's merchandise-trade balance for 1998 fell to $19 billion from $24 billion in 1997, Statistics Canada reported. The trade balance for December also fell, to $1.6 billion from a revised $1.8 billion in November.

While ATI basks in investors' praise, Matrox prepares its comeback ANDY RIGA The Gazette puters. It's a grueling pace and a ruthless industry, one slip-up and you're toast. "It's a fast-moving market and you're only as good as your latest chip," said Mike Feibus, an analyst at Mercury Research, which tracks the industry "It's unrealistic to expect anybody to grab the top spot all the time. In this business, today's hero is tomorrow's dog." As if there wasn't enough pressure, top players in the industry, including 3Dfx Interactive Inc. and Nvidia are bracing for the worst as giant microprocessor-maker Intel Corp.

increasingly integrates basic functions of graphics chips into its motherboards. That means PC-makers will no longer have to install special graphics chips in their low-end computers. 4 A magazine clipping hangs framed on the wall, adding a splash of colour to Ho's otherwise gray, bland office in suburban Thornhill, north of Toronto. Please see CHIPS, PageD4 S3 Inc. to become the world's largest supplier of graphics and multimedia technology, almost doubling revenue to $1.2 billion and sending its stock price soaring.

Today, while Ho, 48, is hailed in Canadian and U.S. business magazines as a high-technology hero, Trottier, 50, continues to toil in obscurity But behind the scenes, Trottier is preparing the groundwork for a comeback. His small army of engineers are putting the finishing touches on a powerful new chip that Matrox expects to be better than any ATI product, including ATI's latest, the Rage 128 chip. Hoping to quash speculation it's on the brink, Matrox, a privately held firm normally tightlipped about finances, will also soon start being more open about its quarterly sales figures. Every 12 to 18 months, companies in the billion-dollar graphics business have to churn out next-generation chips for computer manufacturers, which then install them in their latest personal com Both have drab offices in sprawling plants outside major Canadian cities.

Both are engineers who launched companies that provide key components that allow computers to display eye-popping 3-D graphics. And both have passed the billion-dollar sales mark and are turning profits in an industry in which most other, U.S.-based players are drowning in red ink. But after a rotten year at Montreal's Matrox Graphics president Lorne Trottier has little else in common with his rival down Highway 401 -Kwok Yuen Ho, president of Toronto's ATI Technologies which had a spectacular 1998. Matrox stumbled after missing a crucial deadline for the launch of its G200 graphics chip last year. The result: lost contracts, layoffs and persistent rumours the company was in deep trouble.

Meanwhile, All, thanks to its popular and on-time Rage Pro chip, was going gangbusters. It surpassed is buoyant Outlook for loony Dollar watch How the dollar has fluctuated since j0k Nov. 4, 1996 .01 i Yesterday' Jan. 1, 1998 69.91 Aug. 27, 1998 Low in history: 63.31 4 Nov.

1, 1996 74.96 76 74 72 70 68 66 64 Yesterday's j. close. 67.27 cents U.S. cents U.S. jU tions will push forecasts comes from Mario Angas- tiniotis, an economist at Standard Poor's MMS, a concern that advises clients Value in U.S.

cento 62 Can it possibly be a mere two years since the Canadian dollar was flirting saucily with a value of 75 cents U.S.. Ah, for another taste of those halcyon days when nobody dreamed that decent, upstanding Canadians would ever have to lay out $1.50 for each dollar spent on a U.S. vacation trip or a purchase from L.L. Bean. Sad to say, we now know that the loony is the only waterfowl in the world that can suffer from severe shrinkage.

On the other hand, this shrinkage need not be permanent, and a number of analysts now offer some hope that the process is reversing itself. Many still remember the five-month slide that took the dollar from 71 cents last March to a frightening all-time low it well beyond yesterday's close of 67.27 cents. Indeed, as long ago as August, economists like Carl Weinberg of New York's High Frequency Economics and Robert Normand of Levesque Beaubi-en Geoffrion were suggesting that this could happen. They believed the dollar was oversold and would bounce back robustly as this country's trade performance improved from the shock it suffered during the Asian economic meltdown. Such predictions look pretty clever in retrospect, with an increasing number of analysts now saying much the same thing.

One of the most optimistic current on the outlook for financial markets. He predicts that the dollar will trend steadily upward for the foreseeable future, heading toward 69.2 cents this summer and 72.1 cents by the end of the year. Another influential dollar-booster is Mark Chandler, senior economist at Goldman Sachs Canada. Chandler's yearend target is more cautious, at 70.4 cents U.S., but his argument is similar to that of Angastiniotis. It can be summed up in three parts.

JAY BRYAN of 63.3 cents in August. Since then, it moved in fits and starts, bouncing back to well above 66 cents in September only to slump below 65 cents for most of the remainder of 1998. But since the beginning of this year, the battered dollar seems to have gained new strength, and the belief is spreading that some key shifts in Canada's underlying economic condi First, the Canadian dollar should never have been as low as 63.3 cents in a perfectly rational world. Financial markets usually overreact to any dramatic new information, and when the information is as dramatic and difficult to measure as the impact of an Asian economic collapse, the overreac-tion is likely to be large and to last for a while Please see BRYAN, PageD2 he time has come to furnish the SEMI executiye office of your dreams! ANNUAL FLOOR MODEL it fJvlSy i Mi i "r1 1 Montreal's Largest Over 100 Executive Suites Showroom! Fn0 toqBIIIoff 3155 Deville 725-5295 4.