Stuart, FIBR could be good if they successfully spin off Sorrento networks. Market figures are being revised upward for DWDM sales. Huge growth starting to occur from 2003 to 2004, and ramping much higher from there. I see DWDM and SANs becoming integrated in metro environments. The following are reasons why I think Ancor has great potential:
Fibre Channel goes great with digital video. Digital Video will become more important and drive the DWDM explosion as broadband buildouts pick up speed. The trend will be to inject more and more digital video into the computer/network experience, and to inject more computer intelligence into dynamic digital images (this I think is the real job of AOL Time Warner type companies). Thinking images, or advanced computer programs that give lifelike qualities to interactive digital images(super animated graphics), could emerge out of convergence and would require huge software files. The trend of convergence is to merge digital video deeply into the computer experience of the future. Digital Video takes up huge amounts of bandwidth and storage. To truly integrate INTERACTIVE digital video effectively into the computer network, you need more powerful CPUs, with Rambus and Infiniband fabrics, that open the pipes of the "network computer."
There are multiple DWDM suppliers. Ancor has only one real competitor in Fibre Channel switching, and that is at the low end. On the director class switch, they are the only company. The trend toward large data centers with big director class switches, and Infiniband compute clusters, could provide a huge market for them. My intuition, tells me that Ancor's FC & Infiniband products combined, will become very important in future networks and there are no other companies with this combination. If the market evolves this way, I think it will be a grandslam homerun. There is a reason Sony calls it's Playstation II processor, the emotion engine. People get swept off their feet in awe, when they see high resolution graphics, with intelligence or lifelike qualities merged. It's so real it makes you gasp. This is the future, an internet with graphics more real and lifelike than Playstation II. Computing is becoming storage centric and visual, and Ancor empowers the storage centric visual network.
Regards,
JW |
