Interesting you should quote from Hamlet. To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause. . .
Choosing to be or not be is probably a bit heavy for the occasion, but Polonius' admonition, "This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. . ." is pretty good advice.
Okay, turning to the conference call.
First, and most notably, Terry Matthews was not present. The call was handled by John Lawlor, Ken Wigglesworth, and Pearse Flynn, with backup from Conrad Lewis and the guy who replaced Brian Jervis. I didn't catch his name.
Analysts were subdued. Sort of like in fourth grade when the teacher's underslip fell down around her ankles and no one had the courage to tell her --- and she pretended she didn't notice. Questions were carefully phrased and answers seemed to separate into syllables and bounce off distant planets before forming into words that made sense. Even then, many didn't. Like any unresolved conflict, key components were sucked into some cosmic black hole where even the bravest feared to go.
Dr. Seuss would have loved it.
At any rate, a few random notes:
* Company has hired top tier financial advisor
* 50/450 on target: customer labs in Dec., service trials March, field deployment May to June.
* Gross margins will be impacted by lower margin LMDS and DSL. No sales targets at this time.
* Keeping TDM. Good business. Sales stable.
* SBC announcement --- don't know where public figures came from. NN is part of project Pronto.
* LMDS main success in Europe, will have significant revenues as they roll out. Q2 to Q3 will see 100% growth. Supply is issue. (No basis given for 100% growth.)
* No answer on how much of positive BtoB is ATM.
* No answer on how much broadband contributes to revs
* LMDS less than 7% of revs
* R&D --- not dropping anything, but capping some.
* Outsourcing --- only volume mfg. New product will stay in house.
* Refused to break out SBC possibilities. Lawlor gave a typical non-answer, "given scale of SBC contract you can draw conclusions. . ."
* SBC not 10% customer. Siemens the only one in category. But in top 5.
* Still comfortable with wireless estimates given earlier. No comment on DSL.
* Switching and routing will be brought together, and Northchurch leveraged.
* Guidance for revenues? Will talk off line.
* No impact on major projects due to layoffs. Will add resources to 50 gig and broadband/DSL.
* No unusual turnover in personnel
* Only management change is new head of sales for US, Eddy Mitchell. (Don't know how Jervis's replacement fits in.)
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