Regarding venture capital and GBLX I note that Pluris is an investment located at the GBLX Venture capital site also.
Aside - Are there really only three hundred people on the internet? It seems I've seen half of them before, particularly those on this board, you know who you are.
<<<ROCHESTER, NY -- September 14, 1999 -- Frontier Communications' venture capital arm, Frontier Internet Ventures, Inc., today announced a $3 million investment in Pluris, the leading developer of multi-stage terabit routers for the new Internet infrastructure. Frontier has also joined the Pluris Partner Program and is working with Pluris to test protocols and equipment as the new Pluris Terabit Network Router comes to market.
Through its investment, Frontier will have a first look at new optical Internet technologies from Pluris, such as the Terabit Network Router. Led by a seasoned management team with decades of high-tech industry experience, Pluris is developing technology that Frontier can leverage to cost-effectively scale the speed and capacity of its Internet Protocol (IP) network.
"Pluris has assembled a top-notch team of industry innovators," said Jonathan Heiliger, senior vice president of Frontier Ventures. "Frontier will benefit from the ability to tap into their vast expertise in developing carrier-class IP technology as we aggressively scale our next-generation Internet infrastructure. In order to meet the constantly expanding needs of customers, a carrier's infrastructure must evolve and scale at a break-neck pace."
Added Pluris CEO Joseph Kennedy, "The investment by Frontier testifies to the market demand for terabit-class routers, validates our scalable, distributed architecture, and confirms the strength of talent Pluris has attracted. We are delighted to be adding Frontier Ventures to our present blue-ribbon team of financial backers."
Pluris plans to introduce its new Terabit Network Router in early 2000. This new product is designed with the flexibility to enable companies like Frontier, which are committed to providing integrated communications services over the Internet, to lower the total cost of ownership and reduce management complexity.
"The Pluris Terabit Network Router, with its highly scalable design and leading capacity metrics, is the kind of platform we need to evaluate to continue to grow our global IP architecture," said Alan Hannan, senior director of network architecture for Frontier. "We're constantly targeting communications equipment that can best help us stay ahead of our customers' application demands and provide flexible and reliable bandwidth."
Sam Halabi, vice president of marketing for Pluris, noted, "Frontier's perspective as a leading communications provider, with its particular focus on optical networking technologies, will provide us with key insights as we continue to refine the TNR."
About Pluris
Pluris was formed in 1997 to develop IP core telecommunications routers offering carrier-class availability and the long-term capacity growth that service providers require in the next-generation IP-based optical core. For more information, contact the company at 408-863-9920 or visit the Pluris web site at www.pluris.com
About Frontier
Frontier Communications, a unit of Frontier Corporation (NYSE:FRO), is a leading Internet Protocol (IP) applications and communications services provider. Frontier recently agreed to merge with Global Crossing Ltd. (NASDAQ:GBLX). The combined company will own and operate the first seamless global IP network with more than 88,100 ultra-high bandwidth fiber miles connecting 170 major cities in 24 countries. For more information, visit www.frontiercorp.com
Frontier Communications created Frontier Ventures in February to establish relationships with Internet and communications start-ups developing products for business or carrier use, entrepreneurs, and other venture capital firms. Through these relationships, Frontier will be able to offer technical and strategic guidance on products and applications, identify new business opportunities, and work side-by-side with industry visionaries to create next-generation Internet solutions. For more information visit www.frontierventures.com
You can receive a faxed copy of any Frontier Corporation press release dating back to June 1998, free of charge, 24 hours a day by calling 1-800-448-8533. An automated system will provide you with instructions.>>>
My Comments
First, it helps to remember that the founder of GBLX is an investment banker by trade. And that by the dates, FRO had started this fund for microcap seed capital a year ago. Probably no investment over $3 million would be my guess.
GBLX must be in the Venture Capital business because much of the swelling of bandwidth is through incremental technical theory advances. While the volume of flow through a physical pipe can be computed with simple algebra involving length, viscosity, diameter, pressure, etc.; the volume of information that can be carried through a fiberoptic "pipe" on a single frequency of energy, or the modulation thereof is limited only by technology and imagination. What we call "Bandwidth".
The people that will become great in this field may yet to be born. Seventy years ago it was a great task to take 50 year-old minds trained in Newtonian Physics and start them understanding the Lorenz contraction of time, or Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. To a great extent, it didn't happen, they just died out. Much of quantum physics studies now are in the hands of people who grew up without the limits of Newtonian Physics being hardwired into their brain.
This 22 year old "wunderkind" is not running the company, but he is a link to the ideas that will be valuable to the company in the future and has been given the capital to help develop those ideas. I'm sure he will adequately buffered by enough "old fogeys" 35-55 who have seen the end of several rainbows and found no pot of gold. I for one, although being at the point where it's too late to be the "youngest" anything, see this continuation of FRO's idea to be good.
From a February Press Release:
<<<Jonathan Heiliger, 22, will manage the fund. Heiliger, who did not attend college, began working with computer graphics on the Internet while he was still in high school, before the Internet was commercialized. Heiliger has also started several companies of his own; one was GlobalCenter, which was acquired by Frontier about a year ago. "It's been an interesting ride, that's for sure," he says.>>>
Change is everywhere, only the speed of light is constant.
Zebra |
