Sector,
Several more things I failed to post re. the Scottsdale conf.:
Mory was asked whether the TNT s/w problem was fixed. He said a fix went out in December and that "it is stable." A "formal" release goes out in February.
I said "CPQ has a stated objective of $50B in sales by 2000. You are now a $1B company, do you have any revenue objective for the year 2000 or otherwise?" Ejabat response was the anticipated 15-20% 1998 revenue increase. (I.e., he would not state a sales target figure, which I take it as being conservative).
On port pricing trends, Ejabat said the street price is more stable today than it had been in the past 6-7 months. From 750/port to 300/port now, and stabilized. Maybe down to 225 or 250/port by year end. Lease prices are now 550/port, dropping to 400-450/port by year end 98. The drop is due to new technology being introduced in the first half of 98 that will bring pricing down.
Some of the new features being added to TNT are s/w features. For example, UUFAX (now being implemented by UUNET and which has been in trial for the past 3 months) is a s/w upgrade (Mory pointed out that this was better for margin). If want voice, that requires a new card in the MAXTNT.
Mory was asked if he ever ran into Newbridge (NN). He said "they are mainly international, TDN replacement, Candada, so we don't see them. We see increasing presence in Europe (so, I gathered, ASND still has a lot of international market share on which to focus).
Gary Korn |
