Here is some dialog myself and a partner have had with Clarent investor relations. I am more bullish then ever on CLRN after discussing this with CLRN investor relations. Notice the information regarding competition, "Cisco and Nortel are both working with legacy products - e.g.,, trying to
add Voice over IP to routers which were not designed to interconnect to
circuit switches using circuit switched signaling protocols. As such , it
has been more difficult for them to get flexible, software- driven voice
over IP products into the market"
I am going to load up even more on Monday. A few years from now and we will be richly rewarded.
Dialog as follows:
Mr. *****,
I am Clarent's director of investor relations, and I am aware of the dialog
you've had with Eileen Morcos at Hill and Knowlton. My apologies for not
connecting with you earlier by phone to address your questions. As Eileen
already shared with you, we were in the midst of a significant investor
event the day you proposed setting up a phone call.
I've taken a shot at resonding to your questions in writing (see below). If
you need more info or have follow-up questions, please let me know and we
can try to set up a time to talk next week.
Angela
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Clarent Corporation - Fueling the Telecommunications Revolution
Angela Comstock Clarent Corporation
Director, Investor Relations 700 Chesapeake Drive
650 481-1757 (Voice) Redwood City, California 94063
650 368-6330 (Fax) clarent.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Mr Internet
To: emorcos@hillandknowlton.com
Sent: 11/2/00 10:39 PM
Subject: Clarent vs Competitors
Hello,
I currently hold a sizable stake in Clarent Corporation.
Their growth looks great and earnings are climbing. The China deal could
prove to be quite large for the future.
A few questions though.
I am concerned about longevity, especially with the continued surge of Cisco
and Nortel into the VoIP sector.
Clarent is a pure play IP communications provider - we have built products
that, from the ground up, are designed for voice being converged with data
and fax traffic, with interconnections to the circuit switched world as well
as to the pure IP world.
We have also built products that are software-driven, with tremendous
flexibility for change and scale.
Cisco and Nortel are both working with legacy products - e.g.,, trying to
add Voice over IP to routers which were not designed to interconnect to
circuit switches using circuit switched signaling protocols. As such , it
has been more difficult for them to get flexible, software- driven voice
over IP products into the market.
Our established customer base of 300+ service providers, including many of
the world's largest telcos (AT&T, British Telecom, China Telecom, NTT,
Telstra, KPN) is proof that we have a working product that generates value
in the service provider marketplace and is able to effectively compete
against products manufactured by other suppliers such as Cisco and Nortel.
Clarent faired well, although behind, in a recent testing vs Nuera and
Cisco.
[ nwfusion.com ]
Specifically mentioned was the concern with Voice Quality due to latency
problems. Actually falling below toll standards for the Clarent system.
Also touched upon was the difficulty in installation and maintenance for the
Clarent system vs Nuera and Cisco.
Clarent lacking a single control program.
The differences in the testing were insignificant, in our view, and could
have been related to the testing environment or the lack of people that we
had working with the testers during the test.
The true measure is customer base and market performance. Our voice
quality, when put into well designed IP networks, is indistinguishable from
that of the PSTN.
Our system may be more complex to set up because of the rich feature set
that exists within. We have a full training curriculum for our customers so
that they learn about setting up and managing our products.
Thirdly, Can a Clarent installation coexist with other H.323 systems in
standard protocol while maintaining the proprietary gateway with other
Clarent installations?
Yes and we have this working and deployed today with Cisco systems in
several carriers' networks around the world (e.g. ITXC's network).
Clarent's gateways talk to Cisco gateways through a mediation product called
the Clarent Gatekeeper, and the protocol used is H.323, version 2. These
networks can then be managed by the Clarent Command Center.
Regarding the first two concerns above, what is in Clarent's future plans to
rectify these situations?
And, what is THE major advantage to running a proprietary system vs H.323?
The major advantage of a proprietary system is feature set. Industry
standards, because they need to settle to a "least common denominator" of
features to accommodate many different vendors, just don't have the same
number of features. That said, there are tremendous benefits to
interoperability - more vendors, no issues of single dependency. This is
why Clarent supports an open, standards-based environment. We do this with
a multi-protocol system; one that supports several interoperability
protocols simultaneously - H.323, MGCP, and soon SIP.
Thank you,
Derek ***** |
