General Datacomm
Greetings Shlomi
orctf seems to be holding up ok..
if you hear anything in your travels regarding orctf still working with gdc (General Datacomm), would be interested to hear any details...
Again you probably know this, but .... the orctf hdsl system was/is the result of two alliances: Brooktree for the chipset (trail still seems warm), and GDC for the "product"... has this trail gone cold?
My guess is that gdc contracted with orctf (92) and orctf held onto partial product rights as part of the deal. First and last mentions of orctf/gdc i have run across reference 92. Apparently they jointly owned the hdsl technology developed, and each could commercialize without restrictions (more or less)...
A recent telechoice post jogged the old memory...
"General DataComm Broadens Its Global Presence ÿ Check It Out
Copyright c 1997 TeleChoice, Inc.
November 7, 1997 -- General DataComm, Inc. (NYSE - GDC) continues its momentum in Latin America by announcing it will provide its Universal Access System (UAS) to Nortel as part of a contract by Colombia's newly-formed telecommunications service provider...
Selected were the GDC 600 series for economical and easily-installed access to digital networks; the 700 High Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line (HDSL) transmission products for wideband and fractional services;...."
telechoice.com
As discussed, have been wondering thru which relationships orctf product is being sold in s. america. Lucent seems to be a leading candidate but maybe gdc should be added to the list....
Not only is gdc strong in s america, but lucent is one of their 2 major strategic selling partners (ericsson is their other). Went back and checked and sure enough gdc is involved in the netherlands with lucent as well. Same timeframe as the lucent/orctf hdsl win.
Guess the big ? is whether gdc is doing their own hdsl in entirety or is using orctf for some piece, and then, if orctf is involved, whether the gdc/orctf package fits into an international/emerging markets product line with others (lucent etc)? Could gdc could be the (missing?) connection between orctf and emerging markets?
Was starting to think that all this might get interesting when hdsl2 was factored in for n. america, but on second thought the only n american potential for these connections (if they exist at all) would seem to be silicon. As discussed, sure hope orctf owns a piece of that (hdsl2 silicon action). As negotiators orctf seem to be up to the challenge. Time will tell on hdsl2.
GDC's strength is atm and as such would seem to be in direct competion with fujitsu. Went back and looked at the Fujitsu/orctf press release on their stategic alliance for xdsl in n america (mutually exclusive). Have been thinking about it in terms of adsl or vdsl, but it covers hdsl as well, which fujitsu explicitly seems quite happy about...
To put an extra twist on all this, gdc as an ongoing concern is something of a mixed bag, to put it nicely. Although their engineering is good enough for lucent they seem to have a problem with turning a profit.
Employee count: over 10x orctf @ 1,849 persons (96), revenues: over 15x orctf @ $235 m (96) and current market cap: less than 1/2 orctf @ $110m. Positions have certainly changed from 93 when with atm in the spotlight, gdc had close to a $750 m market cap and orckit was an embryonic venture. Credit orctf for negotiating their share of hdsl product ownership within this context.
Did you get to speak with Tamir on 11 Nov ?
Can you post info?
Best wishes and thanks
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