To: Eleder2020 who wrote (25092 ) 12/7/1999 6:47:00 PM From: Bob Frasca Respond to of 29386
Doing my bit in defense of the baby. This is what I posted on Herbie's message board. I actually sent part of this as an e-mail to him awhile back but he never responded. I decided to update it and send it again. I doubt he'll respond this time either... You continuously claim that, when it comes to Ancor Communications, you are simply "raising questions and pointing out risks related to fundamentals". The fact is, you've never discussed the fundamentals of this company in any of your articles. Let's address the highlights: 1. You took a cocktail party conversation out of context (second hand conversation by the way) and implied that there was a chance that their earnings might be suspect. Wrong on both counts. 2. Implied that their was something sinister about shipping a product before it was formally announced. This is so ludicrous as to defy belief. I recommend that you randomly check high tech hardware company new product press releases. You'll find an awful lot of companies who state that their new product is currently shipping. 3. Questioned their revenue recognition policies. Imagine, recognizing revenue when the product was shipped. How novel. Yet no comment at all about the competitions rather questionable policy of recognizing revenue when the OEM ships. Sounds to me like the competition is shipping product on consignment. Perhaps they don't want to itemize product returns on their balance sheet. Do you think that McDonald's recognizes revenue when you actually eat the Big Mac or when they put the pallet on the truck to ship it to your local privately owned franchise? 4. This is one of my personal favorites. Your implication that management made some sort of gaff by announcing their new switches the day before the FCTC opened while indicating in their release that the event had already begun. I'm sure that you realize that many companies, (including the competition, in this case, though you didn't mention them) make significant announcements on the day prior to a big event in order to generate a little pre-event buzz at the cocktail parties, golf tournaments etc., that frequently precede events of this magnitude. 5. Finally, today you intimate that accepting an investment from Intel, let me say that again, INTEL, is somehow a bad thing. Oh I know you said it was a good thing from a "stock-spinning point of view" but the intimation was clear. Your other arguments are equally silly. Ancor has always acknowledged being late to the SAN niche of the FC switch market. You conveniently forget that they were actually the FIRST company that took a fibre channel switch to market. As for the deal with Intel, the fact that their investment is one of many is irrelevant. The fact that Intel got a deal on the shares is also irrelevant. After all, they are Intel and the discount was not that significant compared to yesterday's closing price or their 50 day moving average. As for the deal not being exclusive. So what. The only other significant competition supposedly passed on the deal. (If you believe that, I've got a bridge for sale.) Sounding a lot more exclusive the more I think about it. The remarks from Brocade were amusing. Do you really think that the list of players, a veritable who's who in computing, would waste their time on a technology that won't go to market? Does the expression "sour grapes" mean anything to you? Perhaps you should consider an article about the remarkable turn around the company has made in the last year or two and their bright future. I doubt you will though. You're in the business of finding fault and assigning blame. You should know that when you started questioning the ethics of the management of this company you made a grave mistake. Those of us who have been riding the roller coaster with this company the last few years know that this is one area that they are above reproach.