Skipper,
I finally got a chance to listen to the Ascend conference call. One thing is clear - the RAS marketplace is as strong as ever. It also tells me that Shiva really dropped the ball. It was a good conference call, and I hope USR's is equally as upbeat.
I was somewhat surprised that MAX gross margins were so strong in consideration of the recent price cutting. This strength at Ascend should bode well for USR's margins as well.
They finally fessed up to (at least) a two tiered 56k deployment - a hard coded chipset first, followed by a software upgradeable chipset. Mory said that the will only providing 56k units to ISPs who ask for it - and very few are asking for it. Not surprising, since there are no ROK client modems to talk to them.
Per the conference call, Ascend does not sell directly to AOL, and did not elaborate on Ascend products being sold to resellers for use by AOL other than to say there were some orders. As to BBN, they said they were a good customer, maybe will see some order increases, maybe not. The call lasted forever, and my phone ran out of juice before end. When you post numbers like that, everyone wans to say hello, offer kudos, and ask a question.
Let's see...1:00 AM, alarm set for 5:00 AM. I think my batteries are out of juice, too.
Later,
David |
