FNSR - IPO (Friday?)
Company Description
We are a leading provider of fiber optic subsystems and network performance test systems which enable high-speed data communications over local area networks, or LANs, and storage area networks, or SANs. We are focused on providing high-performance, reliable, value-added optical subsystems for networking and storage equipment manufacturers that develop and market systems based on Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel protocols. Our line of optical
subsystems supports a wide range of network applications, transmission speeds, distances and mediums. We also provide unique network performance test systems which assist networking and storage equipment manufacturers in the efficient design of reliable, high-speed networking systems and the testing and monitoring of the performance of these systems. The growing number of users accessing networks, the need to accommodate higher-bandwidth traffic and the increasingly mission-critical nature of data networking and storage networking has created the need for a new generation of
high-speed, high-performance networking and storage systems that rely on fiber optic transmission technology. Many of these systems operate over Gigabit Ethernet-based LANs, Fibre Channel-based SANs or extended versions of these networks. These systems utilize fiber optic subsystems which enable them to transmit data at very high speeds with high accuracy, often over long distances.
In addition to creating a need for optical subsystems, complex protocols such as Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel have resulted in a demand for advanced network performance test systems. As these protocols have emerged, system testing has become more difficult, requiring increasingly sophisticated and specialized test systems capable of capturing data at high speeds, filtering the data and identifying various types of intermittent errors and other network
problems. The development and manufacture of high quality, cost-effective fiber optic subsystems for LANs and SANs present a number of significant technical challenges. Data integrity, reliability and standards compliance become increasingly difficult at high transmission speeds. Additionally, manufacturers require optical subsystems which support a broad range of network applications.
To date, we believe that only a limited number of companies have developed the specialized expertise required to engineer fiber optic subsystems and network performance test systems which meet the requirements of manufacturers of high-speed data networking and storage systems. Our optical subsystems and network performance test systems are designed to provide the following key benefits to systems manufacturers:
VALUE-ADDED FUNCTIONS AND INTELLIGENCE. Our high-speed fiber optic
subsystems are engineered to deliver value-added functionality and intelligence. For example, many of our optical subsystems include a microprocessor with proprietary embedded software that allows customers to monitor the optical performance of each port on their systems in real time. Additionally, many of our subsystems are engineered to automatically recognize different versions of
the Fibre Channel protocol and to interoperate with legacy systems. Real-time monitoring and interoperability are particularly important in the Gigabit Ethernet LAN and Fibre Channel SAN markets where reliability and time to market are critical. Our test systems also contain value-added software functions such as data capture, data generation and error generation.
HIGH LEVEL OF DATA INTEGRITY. Through the use of advanced packaging and circuit design, our optical subsystems deliver a high level of data integrity, which results in precise transmission of data at very high speeds over varying distances. This high level of data integrity allows our subsystems to operate reliably over a wide range of temperatures and other field conditions which we believe enables our customers to design and deliver more robust systems.
HIGH RELIABILITY. We design all of our subsystems to provide the high
reliability and flexibility required by manufacturers for mission-critical applications such as real-time SAN storage backup and LAN backbone switching. Some of our products have a statistically-determined mean time to failure of 40 million hours. In addition, because our subsystems exceed the FCC standards for electromagnetic interference emissions, we offer manufacturers greater flexibility in the design of their systems.
BROAD OPTICAL SUBSYSTEM PRODUCT LINE. We offer a broad line of optical
subsystems which operate at varying protocols, speeds, fiber types, voltages, wavelengths and distances and are available in a variety of industry standard packaging configurations, or form factors. The breadth of our optical subsystems product line is important to many of our customers who manufacture a wide range of networking products for diverse applications.
BROAD TEST SYSTEM PRODUCT LINE. We offer a broad line of test systems to assist our customers in efficiently designing reliable, high-speed networking systems and testing and monitoring the performance of these systems. We believe our test systems enable our customers to focus their attention on the development of new products, reduce overall development costs and speed time to market. Our goal is to be the optical subsystem and network performance test system provider of choice for multiple protocols and network applications. We intend to maintain our technological leadership through continual enhancement of our existing products and the development of new products as evolving technology permits higher speed transmission of data, with greater capacity, over longer distances. We plan to leverage our relationships with our existing customers as they enter new, high-speed data communications markets and to expand our sales
and marketing organization in order to establish new relationships with other key data and storage networking manufacturers. We intend to capitalize on our customers' satisfaction and our service-oriented approach to take advantage of cross-selling opportunities. We also plan to expand our international sales efforts. We sell our products to leading networking and storage equipment manufacturers such as 3Com, EMC, Emulex, IBM, Newbridge Networks and Sun Microsystems, as well as emerging manufacturers such as Brocade Communications
and Extreme Networks. For the fiscal year ended April 30, 1999, we had revenues of $35.5 million and net income of $3.1 million. For the quarter ended July 31, 1999, we had revenues of $13.9 million and net income of $1.3 million.
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Financial Data – does not cut and paste well:
Message 11252588
Patent Issued Title Score US05604735 02/18/1997 High speed network switch 80% US05956168 09/21/1999 Multi-protocol dual fiber link laser diode controller and method 77% US05566171 10/15/1996 Multi-mode high speed network switch for node-to-node communication 77% US05404505 04/04/1995 System for scheduling transmission of indexed and requested database tiers on demand at varying repetition rates 77% US05271079 12/14/1993 Light mixing device with fiber optic output 77% US05247532 09/21/1993 Method and apparatus for stimulating a laser diode in a fiber optic transmitter 77% US05019769 05/28/1991 Semiconductor laser diode controller and laser diode biasing control method 77% US04927225 05/22/1990 2×2 Optical bypass switch 77% US04881789 11/21/1989 Integrated optical coupler and connector 77%http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/patsearch
CUSTOMERS The following table is a list of our customers who have purchased more than$75,000 of our products during the 12-month period ended July 31, 1999: 3Com Corporation Essential Communications Mitsui & Co. Ltd.Alcatel Extreme Networks, Inc. Mylex CorporationAmdahl Corporation Fermi National Accelerator Lab Network Appliance, Inc.Atl Products, Incorporated. Fibre Technologies Ltd. Newbridge Networks CorporationBoeing Corporation Fujitsu Computer Products Qlogic CorporationBrocade Communications Systems, Inc. Gadzoox Networks, Inc. Quantum CorporationBull Electronics GCH Test & Computer Services Ltd. Raytheon CorporationComdisco, Incorporated Hewlett-Packard Corporation Seagate Technology Inc. Compaq Computer Corporation Hitachi Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.ConvergeNet Technologies Inc. Hy-Line Computer Components Storage Networks Inc.Crossroads Systems, Incorporated International Business Machines Storagetek, Inc. Corp.Data General Corporation Inrange Technologies Corp. Sun Microsystems Inc.Dell Computers Corporation Intel Corporation The Shure GroupDigital Equipment Corporation Jaycor Networks Inc. Thomas & Betts CorporationDolch Computer Systems Lockheed Martin Corporation Vixel CorporationEG&G Incorporated LSI Logic Corporation VME Microsystems InternationalEMC Corporation McData Corporation W J Hughes Research Center Emulex Corporation McDonnell Douglas Corporation Western Digital Corporation Sales to our two principal customers, Newbridge Networks and EMCCorporation, accounted for 43.9% and 14.6% of our revenues in fiscal 1998, 25.1%and 20.8% in fiscal 1999 and 34.9% and 19.0% in the three months ended July 31,1999.
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herring.com
<<OPTICS AND AUCTIONS
The sleeper in the coming week could very well be Finisar, a Sunnyvale, California-based fiber optics provider that serves the storage networking industry. Its revenues increased to $34.5 million for the fiscal year ending April 30, a 56 percent increase from $22.1 million reported in fiscal year 1998. Finisar reported net income of $3 million in fiscal year 1999, versus net income of $4.3 million in 1998. According to the Street Poll, the deal is Red Hot.>>
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Should be a good one, see METHA for a sympathy play. Mr P!nk, one of SI's savviest investors recommends it:
Message 11824859
IPO of the week at www.ipo-fund.com
Finisar
FNSR
One of the hottest areas in the market right now is networking equipment companies. Two of the hottest sectors within networking equipment are fibre channel based storage networks and gigabit ehternet based local area networks. Our IPO of the week sells components and systems to both of these sectors. Their client base includes established networking companies such as Newbridge and 3Com as well as newer companies such as Brocade and Extreme Networks. Unlike most other recent IPOs, Finisar is fairly sizeable with more than $40 million in sales over the last 12 months and profitable. While competition has been lowering the price points for its products, it should continue to benefit from the explosion in popularity of 2 hot network protocols
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