William:
Timing is everything, and luck is all I can claim in my basis of Jan 00. IMO we might see about 50% this year, but not 100%...it may be possible to do better than optical stocks, but it will be hard...because you will have to beat physics...
There is a great series of articles in Scientific American this month (Jan)...pay particular note to the chart on page 81...the source of the chart is Vinod Khosla of KPCB. It basically says that if you thought the pace of change in the computer industry was fast, you ain't seen nutin' yet!
Note the vertical scale. The value-basis for fiber (Silicon Dioxide) is much higher than for Silicon.
Anyone who says the telcom market will slow is probably right....but with respect to what? That's the real question! With respect to itself, and nothing else. All else is transient noise. There is no other market at this time like optical communications, and there has never been one like it in terms of growth...
Yes, the service providers will come and go, because they are playing with business models and technologies that go obsolete quickly. (See the curve?...nine months) New ones will appear with more cash to spend than the incumbents. Why? Because the service market is there, and it is bandwidth hungry.
The safe play is optical hardware. Because the service providers need the most efficient systems, using the latest equipment, powered by the latest components, and more of it, or they will die.
The message is that the service provider needs to show an ROI period of about nine months....or s/he better do a better business or systems engineering model...
And the beat goes on...
-Own |
