I took a break from all the buzz on the Asante board (shave and a haircut, two bits).
Since my last post I installed 5 or 6 more Asante FriendlyNet routers and worked again with some other brands (Linksys, Netgear, Cisco). I wish Asante's were available in stores, damn it, though mailorder's been satisfactory if not convenient.
I had brief trouble setting up a new Asante router in a small business yesterday, and wasn't able to ping the router's WAN IP until I remembered I set the router to discard pings. What a bitch'n little package for $125 ($145 before rebate)! I still wholeheartedly hold to my past gushing endorsements of Asante FriendlyNet routers and support.
-Wireless-
I haven't tried their wireless version, yet, but will soon, perhaps. I still shy away from wireless for security reasons. I have a Orinoco wireless pcmcia card in my Dell laptop and it latches onto insecure wireless networks going down the street. YIKES! There's a web site with a map of a large local city showing where one can get on the Internet and/or a corporate network via wireless. I tried it and it worked -- including an IP address from a large computer store's wireless LAN while I sat in my car in their parking lot.
===============
Sales and Marketing -- that's the big Asante question for me. Do they have any alliances with any (breathing) DSL or cable ISPs to provide routers for customers? PacBell sells Cayman routers (nice but significantly more expensive than Asante and not as elegant as Asante's set up). Asante should have deals with PC manufacturers (e.g., Dell) and broadband providers (e.g., @home, if they live). The providers probably freaked out about advertising NAT capability since they want to charge for each IP, but ISPs are changing their tune now; PacBell just sent me junk snailmail pitching a wireless router for homes connectingh any number of PCs.
Also, how about getting the Asante routers in some MAJOR chain stores -- e.g., CompUSA, Office Depot, OfficeMax, 7-11, EyeExam2000? I'd like to be able to tell a client, "go to Office Depot or OfficeMax and pick up an Asante FriendlyNet router and meet me back here in half an hour."
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. From my point of view, the risk of owning this stock is very, very low since I really don't mind if I lose the few dollars I've put into sub-$1 shares. They have great products and support, and their Price-to-Sales ratio is currently .16 -- pretty damn low. |
