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To: pann1128 who wrote (15896)	9/23/1999 12:06:00 AM
From: Sector Investor	Respond to of 42804

I will ask a contact or two for thoughts on your question. These delays don't bother me. It seems to me we have to look at the situation this way: 1) We used to be a low margin niche vendor of (almost) commodity Ethernet switches. Lots of competitors there. Everyone complained about this. 2) Now we are moving to the higher margin "cutting-edge" or "bleeding edge" technology, where the products have features differentiating them from others (VoDSL and VoIP on Red-C, Linux software on the OSR8040 Router, Open system concepts, single wavelength Metro DWDM nodes, "Coarse" WDM, extended distance Gigabit Ethernet, optical triplexers, Optical switching and cross-connects etc.). If this technology were easy to do, many others would be doing it too, and maybe some doing it better, and we get back to the definition of "commodity". But it ISN'T easy, and we DO have differentiation in several desirable ways (as I mentioned above). As long as these delays are minor they won't hurt, as these markets are just in their infancy.

To: pann1128 who wrote (15896)	9/23/1999 8:30:00 AM
From: Sector Investor	Respond to of 42804

<<Any idea what the normal beta testing period is for carrier class equipment before final product. I understand carrier class requirements are more stringent, and the carriers tend to stick with existing suppliers whenever possible (Unless of course there isn't any existing supplier).>> Here is one response back from an "anonymous" industry contact: "Big ticket items like end office switches and multi-gig (tera?) bit routers take on the order of one to two years. Software, especially, is a nut that must be cross-viewed every which way. I suppose the larger the investment, and the newer the concept is that is being tested, the longer the review process. Historically, they haven't needed to react very quickly, although that has changed to a noticeable degree over the past two years. You hear about faster times to market and testing through modularized/object-oriented software approaches now (making reuse of existing modules that are already trusted) than before. It's the brand new maiden voyage items that take the longer times to test and accept."

To: pann1128 who wrote (15896)	9/23/1999 10:01:00 AM
From: Sector Investor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42804

My industry contact added an extra comment: "I should have added another variable, and that is the size and type of the carrier doing the testing. The larger the longer, as a general rule. Smaller and more-efficient competitive carriers with more to gain, less to lose, are more daring and focused than the older elephants are. But, then again, their purchases may not be of the same scale and risk exposure as those of the incumbents." Old elephants? Don't some live to over 100 years before they die?