Osicom past and potential as written by heels on the yahoo board
Why the spam? Osicom and its CEO, Par Chada, were subjected to an unbelievably negative article by Barron's in Sept. (?) of 1997. In
fact, Par (who is Indian) was "cartooned" on the COVER of Barron's. Many people believe the article was planted by a well-organized
group of shorters.
The spam lasted from September to just recently. It was characterized by the usual: mob stock, impending bankruptcy, off-shore
holdings of management, products are not real products, and so on.
It worked. The stock tanked. The spammers scared a lot of investors away. Many were hurt substantially. Many were small investors.
Now the spam has all but disappeared. And, funny thing, it stopped all at once, leading many of us to believe it was bought and paid for
all along. Fact is, you can go to the SI board and see that virtually all posting has stopped there. Yet this past year, the SI board would
witness more than 100 posts per day. You can see the ultimate spammer there, Mr. Craig Crawford, who is being sued for libel by
Osicom. He's no longer around.
Company history. Osicom was put together by Par Chada. The man is a very hard-nosed negotiator. It is a collection of companies,
actually. . . purchased from Cray and Rockwell and others.
They have "legacy" products, which provide a base of about 90 to 100 million per year. Revenue has dropped off recently, primarily
because of slowed sales in the China facility (Uniprecision). Incidentally, a U.S.-based RBOC signed a contract with Osicom to
manufacture digital beepers (I'm unsure of the exact product). Contract = $11, which will be realized in Q4, ending January 31, 1999.
The RBOC, we believe, is U.S. West.
The new products provide the action. The Gigamux is a short-haul DWDM. Ciena, for example, went to a 9 billion market cap with
ONE PRODUCT, a long-haul DWDM. On CNBC a week or so ago, the CEO of TellLabs, which still might buy Ciena, said that the
short-haul market for DWDM will be bigger than the long-haul market. Also, Osicom has an EPU, which I really don't understand, but
according to our techies on the ragingbull board, it is quite revolutionary and is attractive serious interest at the DWDM seminars Osicom
is currently conducting across the country (see Osicom.com for schedule). Further, Osicom has announced "DWDN" (note the "N," not
"M"). This stands for Dense Wave Division NETWORKING. It involves incorporating the Gigamux technology in switches and routers.
And when you talk "switches and routers," you're talking Cisco. At the last conference call, Par announced new deals with Cisco.
. . . continued next post. |
