<<pigboy, in another venue I made the same criticisms of the larger players. Their only focus seems to have been on multiplying wavelengths, not a bad idea if you're in DWDM, but one that needs sorely to be expanded on.
Frank, glad to see you lurking. You are better able to discuss this technically than I.
<<The merits of the Fiber Driver aside for a moment, who knows what's behind the doors at the other shops? >>
Excellent point. I have the feeling though that MRVC surprised the industry a bit with this technology. LU was said to be trying to figure out how MRVC does (will do) it. How long will the lead over competitors be is anyone's guess. They have had a BIG advantage by having both Fiber optic research AND networking technology research inside a company that is innovative and fast moving by nature. Even CSCO does not have this. They were (are?) working with Ciena for their DWDM and Optical Internetworking products. This has to be a slower R&D process than for MRVC.
But how quickly can an existing DWDM vendor come out with competing products? That is where signist's question is key. Who can say if there are many ways to skin the same cat MRVC has, or if MRVC has some key aspect to this technology in the patent process?
There must be some key differences with their dynamic DWDM, because in the earnings warning CC someone asked how their technology would scale, and Noam replied "up to 20 wavelengths and beyond" which surprised me.
<<Routing (here I'm referring to the ability to tag wavelengths on the fly, much like CSCO's tag switching of IP flows, or its IETF heir, MPLS) and the ability to do add-drop along routes is going to be an imperative for the fiber box vendors. We could expect to see much of this, probably in significant numbers of releases, over the next six months to a year. Tracking who can stay ahead of the curve in this race [and not solely who can do the most lamdas] will be crucial.>>
Absolutely. That is why one or more large strategic partners will be crucial here. Having all the pieces together close to announcement (hitting the ground running) will be important here. I wonder now if the delay in DWDM might have been semi-intentional, to give them more time to work on other aspects of marketing this technology?
At any rate, I don't see MRVC trading below Cash value for much longer, if their earnings prospects are positive and they say positive things about this technology in the CC - always a worry, because the company is naturally secretive (rightly so, in most cases) about their new technology.
MRVC told me that they were working on a CD-ROM that outlined their Optical Networking strategy. I sure would like to see that come out. |
