Kevin, 'something a bit screwy here . . .' well that's exactly why I put out the S.O.S. to Frank and the rest of the guys who actually know which end of the mouthpiece to talk in to. Can't figure it out. Grubman's usually very good on telecom--in fact if memory serves he just won 'outstanding telecom anlayst of the century' for the 3rd year running or some such. Now another poster of famously cynical disposition maintains that Mr. Grubman's opinion might have been prejudiced in favor of WCOM because his employer provides investment banking services for Bernie and the gang. I personally have never heard of such behavior on Wall Street and am SHOCKED that such an attitude would ever see the light of day here on SI.
But just in case the cynic is right, let's try to restate Grubman's case. LVLT marches into a customer's office and dumps a carpet roll of dark fiber on 'em and says: you figure it out. "How do I light this stuff? How do I make it carry info? How do I connect it so all my employees can play Hearts on the Internet?" LVLT says, 'not my problem--you bought it by the yard, you want an installer, call WCOM'.
Ahahhh! says Mr. Grubman, LVLT is in the lousy wholesale carpet commodity biz with its notoriously low margins and zero pricing power. By contrast, WCOM is in the value added services business providing full end-to-end solutions in e-commerce, e-business, and dot.com mantras like hell won't have it and will enjoy obscene margins and prosperity forever. Amen.
Snide folks might suggest that I've oversimplified this little chess board, but, hey, we all have to do what's necessary to fit the games to our personally allocated bandwidth. Frank, you up from your nap yet? best, mike doyle |
