Good article. I like the following:
While network designers contemplate the prospect of machine overload, hundreds of companies, big and small, now grapple with creating networks that can exploit fiber's full bandwidth by transmitting, combining, amplifying and switching wavelengths without ever converting the signal to electrons. Photonics is at a stage that electronics experienced 30 years ago--with the development and integration of component parts into larger systems and subsystems. A rising tide of venture capital has emerged to support these endeavors. In the nine months of 2000, venture funding for optical networking totaled $3.4 billion, compared with $1.5 billion for all of 1999, although this may have eased in recent months. The success of a stock like component supplier JDS Uniphase stems in part from the perception that its edge in integrated photonics could make it the next Intel.
Today's LATimes has an article on IPOs:
latimes.com
. . .Telecommunications companies planning big IPOs include Verizon Wireless Inc. and Cingular Wireless, the top two U.S. mobile-phone companies, as well as China Telecommunications Corp. and Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom Co. Deutsche Telekom and Royal KPN are also expected to sell shares in their wireless businesses this year.
France Telecom's $6.7-billion IPO of its Orange wireless unit will be the first of the telecommunications firms when it begins selling later this month.
"There are some large international telecom deals about to be launched, and the market is waiting with bated breath," said McMillan at Lazard Freres. . . .
This is no overstatement. The market is waiting with bated breath. A healthy IPO market will allow funds to circulate: private companies will get funding to tide them over till they can IPO and newly public companies will get additional funds in secondaries they've had to postpone. Until this happens valuations will continue to drop and only the best will get funded. The rest will fall to the wayside, "R.I.P." written across their hard work and dreams.
For major VCs --- the CSFB's of the world --- there's an enormous opportunity to get into early stage companies at valuations they haven't seen for a couple years. For small VCs, the opportunities will pass them by if they're left holding too many failures. (How many hungry mouths can you feed?) The longer the IPO market takes to rebound, the larger the gap between major and minor will be. And by the time it does rebound, the rich will get richer and the poor. . .
Scott Kriens said it last spring and it's certainly playing out as he predicted.
Pat |
