[Steves Points -- My Take on them]
Pat - please let me start by saying this is not personal, I have the utmost respect for you. I just think that we have been overly optimistic regarding the future of Amati (and to a great extent DSL).
Besides the stuff below - I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that says there is something Amati is not telling us. This is of course only my personal feeling, I have nothing to back it up. It may just be a bad case of shell shock after being burnt by another company that kept slowly falling until the other shoe, leg and other body parts starting plummeting to the ground.
<< Licensing-
Amati has the ADSL ANSI standard.
Aside from the market place seemingly ignoring this (Globespan-CAP shipping, as I
understand it, relatively significant amounts of product, and ADI using DMT w/o
intention to license from AMTX).>>
We have yet to see what licensing will mean to the bottom line, Also the latest PR from Amati they
say "Amati has licensed its DMT technology to companies including Nortel and Motorola." No mention of
TI or any other license's. I know full well that TI, MOT, NEC are big players compared to ADI/AWRE but
ADI/AWRE could decide the challenge the license, or decide not to license at all and take the route
of Orckit.
<<Considering just a presumed ANSI ADSL-DMT future. ANSI gave AMTX the
standard and allows them to charge a "fair and reasonable" price for licensees to use
their line code. What is fair and reasonable? >>
I also have questioned for sometime what it means to charge a "fair and reasonable" rate. I read the post about 20 million licenses at $3.00 - I think this *may* be reasonable. However, I also think it will be at least 5-7 years before 20 million licenses are sold.
<< Cable modems. With all the rollouts, definitely need to watch here.>>
From my vantage point I agree that Cable needs to be watched. I to wrote cable off last year, however, there
are parts of their model that make a lot of sense for delivering content over high bandwidth. (many ISPs just do not want to
lay out the capital necessary to deliver high bandwidth content to the general consumer.
<<ISDN - seems that AT&T and other Bells don't think this is dead (yet, anyway).>>
Agree - the RBOCS are going to squeeze every last cent out of ISDN that they can. I personally like the strategy that Orckit and others are pursuing to deliver ADSL over ISDN. (anything to get a foot in the door so to speak)
<<USRX wants to have their v-everything out in Q3 (summer). They are aiming to sell
these at $200. They will offer ANSI v.34, their proprietary 56K, Aware's DMT
(USRX is just one of many Aware licenses, which is why H&Q picks AWRE as their
top ADSL pick) as well as CAP.>>
At this point in time I have to agree with the above. USRX has stated that they want to build a V-everything and as of today they are using Awares DSL.
<<Motorola and TI can sell their DMT chips to anyone. Presumably Rockwell will offer a
v-everything equivalent, using their own 56K, hoping (as is USRX) for the standard for
56K.>>
Rockwell is working with LU. To me this implies CAP will be part of there V-everything strategy. I believe LU will come out with a DMT version before long.
<<ADSL works at it's reported rates on distances of approx 1 mile or less from the Telco
CO. It further requires connection at the CO with a compatible ADSL modem. For
consumers, a safe, versatile (and relatively inexpensive) choice of modem will be ones
that offer everything. It doesn't seem that AMTX will do this. >>
As pointed out in a prior post the distance is wrong ~2.4 miles then speeds fall rapidly. Opening the Central Office (CO) is still an issue. I wish I had a lot of property to lease that was within 1 mile CO's around the country. I would lease T3 and OC3 lines to my property and then rent DSL. I think it is going to take longer than we first thought to make this technology wide spread (notice I don't say ubiquitous)
<< Is Amati working on ATM compatibility? >> Yes.
<<So, I question Amati's ability to make money with licensing (in those that choose
AMTX-DMT and who are willing to license it) and wonder how successfully AMTX
will be competing selling modems against names and distribution channels like those of
USRX, et al. (when AMTX has product finished and in shipping quantities).>>
I feel the same way.
<<They say that when a stock or the market doesn't respond favorably to good news, it
is a bad sign. Like others have mentioned here, *significant* (vs. window dressing)
insider *buying* would go a long way toward establishing that the company
management has faith in it's products and salesmanship (*especially* since they sold,
as others bought, at much higher levels).>>
At this point I would like to see the officers buying shares in any amount (even window dressing is better than the wholesale selling that they have been doing).
Pat, at this point I am really not sure if I will get back into Amati. I think they are going to be hurting for some time. The article in the WSJ also did not help (it's never a good sign for a companies name and hype be used in the same sentence). |
