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To: red_dog who wrote (12830)	7/21/1999 4:33:00 PM
From: Hiram Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Robert,HLIT building your networks is making everyone look bad. They are kicking some serious cable butt! Woweeee!! Yippeeee!! Wednesday July 21, 4:00 pm Eastern Time Company Press Release Harmonic Announces Record Second Quarter Results SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 1999--Harmonic Inc. (Nasdaq:HLIT - news) today announced its results for the quarter ended July 2, 1999. For the second quarter of 1999, Harmonic reported net sales of $37.9 million, up 109% from $18.2 million for the second quarter of 1998. Net income for the second quarter of 1999 was $3.9 million or $0.25 per diluted share on 15,698,000 shares outstanding, compared to a net loss of $2.9 million, or ($0.25) per diluted share on 11,591,000 shares outstanding for the same period of the previous year. For the first six months of 1999, Harmonic reported net sales of $68.2 million, up from $34.4 million for the same period of 1998. Net income for the first six months was $5.2 million, or $0.36 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $21.3 million, or ($1.85) per diluted share for the same period of the previous year. The loss for the first six months of 1998 includes a charge of $14.0 million or $1.22 per diluted share resulting from the acquisition of Harmonic Data Systems Ltd., previously named New Media Communication Ltd. During the second quarter, domestic sales increased 147% and international sales increased 56% from the second quarter of 1998. The Company continued to ship more of its METROLink(TM) dense wave division multiplexing systems to AT&T Broadband & Internet Services (formerly TCI). Harmonic also introduced a new DWDM return transmitter module specifically designed for use with its PWRBlazer(TM) Scaleable Node, and recently delivered the first multiplexing nodes for a field trial of the LightWire(TM) architecture developed by AT&T. Harmonic experienced increasing demand for its fiber optic products across its worldwide base of cable customers. While there was growing interest from cable, satellite and telephony operators in Harmonic's TRANsend and CyberStream digital products, these products remained a modest portion of the Company's total sales in the second quarter. ''We are very pleased with our record sales and substantially improved profitability in the second quarter,'' said Anthony J. Ley, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. ''We continue to be encouraged by the stronger financial resources of domestic cable operators and their commitment to systematically and cost-effectively upgrade their networks to offer video-on-demand, high-speed Internet access, telephony and other advanced services to more subscribers. ''We continue to enhance our fiber optic product lines and develop new architectures that capitalize on the growth in domestic cable industry spending. While the markets for broadband satellite and wireless are still relatively small, we seek to position Harmonic for these emerging markets in future years.'' Hiram

To: red_dog who wrote (12830)	7/21/1999 8:06:00 PM
From: red_dog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

No Response From George July 14, 1999 by Kevin Prigel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One week ago today George Bell, President of Excite@Home wrote accusing me of inaccuracies in my recent coverage of his company. In response, I invited George to respond to 11 questions I felt needed to be answered about Excite@Home. I offered to post George's response, and reconsider my recent opinions. Many on Yahoo and Silicon Investor AtHome message boards agreed that these questions need to be answered. Surprisingly, Mr. Bell has yet to respond to any of my questions. With the recent acquisition of a new property I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and guess that he's been busy. But now it's time to answer my questions, to change my opinion and reassure his investors. Posted below is the original exchange between Mr. Bell and myself. Kevin-- Your article covering our press lunch was rife with inaccuracies and, unfortunately, led you to make some conclusions that are not based onreality. I would invite you to talk with Caroline Hughes, or email her, (address above) to get the accurate stats (Caroline is our VP, InvestorRelations), and then issue corrections to your article as merited. Thanks. George Bell And my response to Mr. Bell: I would love to hear your side of the growth story. I had been a loyal Excite supporter (since November, shortly after StreetAdvisor's launch), and originally loved the merger with AtHome. However, I believe that some of the nearer long term expectations (3-5) for the company have become hard to believe. The specific questions I have are: 1. Was MSNBC accurate in reporting that you hope to control 25% of the ISP market by 2002? If so, what is the defined ISPmarket, and how do you get 25% of that market? 2. What is Excite@Home's penetration rate in areas where service has been available at least 6 months? 12 months? 3. How are you developing Excite (which I love as a portal and originally covered with the 7 Reasons To Buy Excite in November) into the next AOL? I loved the grand vision you had in the Business 2.0 article. Are you getting content through continued licensing, acquisition, orinternal development? Also, StatMarket shows Excite's traffic in a slow decline, is this temporary or an aberration? 4. I have quite a bit of contact with Sprint. They believe that their ION service will ultimately be the service of choice for themajority of households. What will make cable win? How dependent is Excite@Home's success on the acceptance of cable as a pipe? (Can Excite still be valued as the #1 or #2 portal?) 5. How dependent is Excite@Home on AT&T's network roll out? 6. What is your current customer acquisition cost? 7. Steve Case has described the AOL model to analysts as one in which the subscription fees cover the infrastructure and advertising/e-commerce provided the profits. Is this the model that Excite@Home is aiming for? 8. One of the advantages of the AOL model is that most users are locked inside the shell of the AOL software, allowing them to advertise to users for 55 minutes (average) each session. Is Excite@Home trying to move to a model that keeps a user within the company's properties? 9. Why not open up the networks? Apple had a superior technology in the 1980's. One of the reasons people chose MS was the perceived switching costs were steep for Apple owners, the availability of options was limited, and they [Apple] tried to keep everything. AOL would likely be dead today if they hadn't embraced the open platform: the internet. If I buy a DSL modem, I will likely be able to chose from many ISPs, including AOL. If I get tired of my provider, there is no switching cost. There is also a wide choice in service level, interface, and customer support. With cable on the other hand, I am stuck with Excite@Home,and lose my investment if I want to switch to any other provider. If you open the networks, you can continue being the service provider that cable providers promote, make sure that cable beats DSL quickly, which means it probably doesn't get deployed,and build Excite into the broad band portal. 10. There have been reports that users are increasingly skipping the portals to go straight to the content sites. How will youcontinue to acquire loyal users that come to you first (or come to you for the content)? Thank you in advance for any response. You can also call me at your convenience. With your permission I will publish your answers, word-for-word to these questions. I hope you can make me a believer in Excite again, with the@Home portion now attached.