Grace,
When it comes to Narad Networks, neither of its co-founders, Dev Gupta and Andy Chapman, is prone to understatement. "This is the next-generation Internet," says CEO Gupta. Adds Chapman, who heads the company's marketing: "We will be the Intel of the bandwidth space."
The above is a worn out, throw away cliche. Disregard it completely except for the fact that it should cause you to check into these two guys backgrounds. I did and they seem to be a development shop for Cisco. This is the third business they have co-founded. The other two they sold to Cisco after a year or two. Both companies were in the same space this one is in (forgive my dangling participle).
These are fighting words in the technology world, but if this duo succeeds, they'll be entitled to boast. They're planning nothing short of a broadband revolution.
Whatever. I got their broadband revolution. So does TJ, Bell, Northpoint, Covad, all CDNs, everything streaming, etc.
Narad wants to turn today's typical cable television system--a combination of optical fiber and coaxial cable--into a switched digital network offering speeds of 100 megabits per second, about 200 times faster than a cable modem today.
Now we're getting somewhere. Say these guys succeed. Now you have a waaaay fast last mile. What are you going to do with it? What application will run better when you have greasy fast access? That needs to be answered.
This could help solve the biggest single problem facing the entire tech industry: the lack of real broadband into homes and small businesses.
This is not true. More marketing weenies making useless statements. Broadband applications invented to fill a consumer need have to emerge. Then someone may care about cable modems that are really fast instead of just fast. That's the problem with ATHM today. No compelling reason to switch other than "it's faster". That's nice and it plays a part in keeping ATHM around when others would have paid for Georgebellian management with a trip to the soup kitchen, but it's not a "gotta have it" differentiator.
Narad's technology uses the cable network much the way ADSL technology uses phone lines--sending more capacious signals on the same hardware at higher frequencies. It has also developed accompanying software that allows customers to order movies, or even new phone lines, online and get immediate delivery.
They have to back that crap up before I bite. What are they talking about and how does it work? How does it do anything other than place a service order for phone service with the local MSO or phone company? Does it solve all the problems with VoIP? Does it provide consolidated billing? Does it present something other than a Fred Flintstone interface that's available now compliments of the local Satellite or cable provider? If it does all of that and is affordable, send me a sales rep with a contract.
Says Leslie Ellis, a longtime cable technology analyst based in Denver: "The more you hear about this, the more you wonder why nobody ever did it before." While none of Narad's architecture--which includes three semiconductor technologies and two software systems--is yet installed anywhere, Chapman says that by October, four major cable operators will be testing it.
I tried to look Leslie Ellis up but was only able to locate a disbarred lawyer from North Dakota. court.state.nd.us I have no idea who the one asking "why nobody ever did it before." is. (More forgiveness for the misplaced participle please). She seems confused.
Narad's pedigree is impressive.
This is true. I checked on him. He understands underlying technologies and he understands consumers.
Networking pioneer Bob Metcalfe made Narad his first investment as a venture capitalist with Polaris Venture Partners.
Name dropping. I don't care about Metcalfe's investing any more than I care about Paul Allen's. Great engineers make lousy investors.
Gupta, a Bell Labs veteran, invented bandwidth-enhancing technologies for the telephone network. And he and Chapman have launched and sold two successful networking companies.
He's an engineer and the other one's an Ivy League bean counter. They developed a couple of products for Cisco. Good for them.
The company has chosen the right platform for ambition this vast. No other infrastructure matches the capacity of the cable pipe.
Marketing. The jury will disregard the above statement.
Gupta's initial plan of attack: Help cable companies target small businesses, which spend far more than consumers on communications. That should underwrite the modest costs of launching Narad's services.
Uhhh. Wait a minute. What happened to vast ambition? What happened to the next generation Internet? Modest costs? If these guys follow the formula they've established they will run this business for a couple of years and then sell it to a cable company for between $100M and $140M. That's what they've done twice before only now Cisco doesn't have money.
These guys may have a cool piece of the puzzle, maybe not. They don't say much about the details. But the bottom line is that they are just dressing up the one piece, not building the next generation Internet. Lofty ambition my butt.
The bold claims go on and on. "Now what [Narad] has to do is prove them," says Ellis. "Making technology actually work is always the hardest part." True, but our gut says these guys could succeed.
How many shares of this company can the author buy with his gut? Show me where I can look up the track record of this claim spouting gut. I want to know what this gut thinks about bundling, VOD, ubiquity and broadband applications. Bring me this gut!
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