Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Juniper Networks - JNPR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paulmcg0 who wrote (843)	8/31/1999 9:05:00 AM
From: surelock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3350

I requested an opinion about JNPR from a contact who is head of Information Technology for a large company (over $1 billion market cap). Here is his unedited response: I, and my key network infrastructure guy looked at the technical specifications of the product. They are slightly ahead technically from the mainstream products, but actually somewhat behind Foundry products, which is the company we are purchasing backbone switches from. I would say the valuation is definitely overrated. Having said that, any stock that markets with the word Internet follows no normal multiple or valuation rules. As for true value it is clearly a one product company. Many companies who simply buy for cost and for point solutions may buy Juniper products (many in the Valley buy this way! --> and when someone in the Valley buys the products, often people with money in that company buy the shares of the product company), but they would not form part of a long term solution unless other products follow. Having fiber optic backbones in companies are still probably a year to two away. The technology to attach device to fiber optic network equipment is still expensive. Having gigabit Ethernet backplanes currently provides adequate bandwidth for even us ($1.2 billion US companies). Fibre is for the big service providers. The development costs for this technology become much greater. This is why Cisco's acquisition cost so much! So while wired Ethernet is still going to be predominant in the backbone for companies world (at least a year or two), companies providing switching for the internet will be switching to full optical first. Bottom line, Juniper is not technically going to win the race unless that have some serious additional products behind the scenes. Definitely not with the current product or technology. With the huge growth in this area, they are simply trying to capitalize on grabbing a bit of temporary market share.