Mark, my Ipo of the week. It has the right ingredients. Dlj is the underwriter. It's based right here in San Diego, and over subscribed. I got 300 shares. Big deal, don't you think?
Jnic priced tonight.
>>We are a leading designer and supplier of fibre channel hardware and
software products that connect servers and data storage devices to form storage
area networks, or SANs. SANs were made possible by the emergence of fibre
channel technology, a new generation of server to storage communications
technology that improves data communication speeds, connectivity, distance
between connections, reliability and accessability. Our fibre channel
development efforts began in 1993, and we shipped some of the first commercially
available fibre channel products in 1995. Throughout our history, we have
designed fibre channel products for the most demanding enterprise-level systems
running mission-critical applications. We currently market high-performance
application specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, based on our proprietary
technology, a broad range of fibre channel host bus adapters, or HBAs, and
software that facilitates advanced SAN device integration and management. Our
products provide flexibility, scalability and availability, as well as
manageability and superior performance in network storage systems.
In recent years, the volume of electronic data generated, processed, stored
and manipulated has expanded significantly as a result of the growth of
data-intensive applications such as transaction processing, data mining, data
warehousing, multimedia and Internet applications. International Data
Corporation, or IDC, estimates that the amount of stored network data grew from
10,000 terabytes in 1994 to 116,000 terabytes in 1998, and that it will increase
to 1,400,000 terabytes in 2002. With the dramatic increase in information
storage and data retrieval requirements, system performance has become
increasingly constrained by traditional I/O technologies, such as the currently
prevailing server to storage communications protocol small computer systems
interface, or SCSI. The lack of reliability of data delivery, the support for a
limited number of connections and the short transport distance that characterize
SCSI have limited the capabilities of traditional network storage architectures
and placed constraints on the size of the network. Fibre channel overcomes the
limitations of traditional data communications technologies, because it offers
the connectivity, distance and access benefits of networking architectures
combined with the high performance and quick response needed for data storage
applications. IDC forecasts that the market for products based on fibre channel
technology will grow from approximately $2.0 billion in 1998 to approximately
$15.0 billion by 2002.
We offer a broad range of fibre channel HBAs for the SAN market. Our
products can be used both with the SBus and peripheral component interconnect,
or PCI, interfaces and are deployable across a wide variety of network
configurations and operating systems. We have designed our ASICs to work in the
most demanding, high-end enterprise applications and offer what we believe is
the lowest available latency in complex switched environments. We were the first
in the industry to demonstrate products capable of sustained 2 gigabit per
second fibre channel transmissions. Our proprietary configuration and driver
software incorporates advanced features that significantly enhance and simplify
SAN device integration and management. We work closely with our customers to
tailor our products to their specific requirements by making software driver
modifications to optimize performance with our customers' products. Although our
fibre channel ASICs and HBAs find their primary application in SANs, they have
also been deployed for use with digital graphics, video networks and non-linear
digital editing systems in the advertising, broadcast and entertainment
industries as well as for high speed data processing applications in a variety
of industries including Internet service providers.
Our objective is to become the market leader in high-speed fibre channel
connectivity products for SANs and other applications by providing a family of
integrated ASIC, HBA and software products that exceed competitive offerings in
features, flexibility and price/ performance. Key elements of our strategy
include the following:
- focus exclusively on fibre channel;
- expand penetration of existing original equipment manufacturer, or OEM,
customers and leverage multiple distribution channels;
- provide customer-driven product functionality and high-quality customer
service and support to meet end-user needs;
- leverage fibre channel technology and quality leadership;
- promote the JNI brand; and
- establish and maintain strategic alliances and acquisitions.
We sell our products domestically and internationally primarily through OEM
and distribution channel customers including distributors, system integrators
and value-added resellers who sell directly to end-users. We have long-term
relationships and strategic alliances with many of our customers, including
Amdahl, AVID, Chaparral, Data General, EDS, EMC, Hitachi, McData and StorageTek.
End-users of our products include Amazon.com, Boeing, British Airways, Charles
Schwab, DaimlerChrysler, Federal Express, GTE, Lexis Nexis, Mobil, Morgan
Stanley and US WEST Capital Funding.<< |
