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Technology Stocks : Network Appliance -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mariner who wrote (2042)	1/9/2000 11:06:00 PM
From: dwayanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10934

however I don't see the cache biz as important as NAS for NTAP. Merrill writeups constantly emphasize the importance of NTAP's cache. My understanding of why is that cache would sharply raise switching costs, helping cement NTAP into the NAS market. NTAP filer equivalents could (at least theoretically) be functionally duplicated by any competitor with a lot of money and a couple of years. Competing filers could be installed incrementally alongside or in place of NTAP filers with little disruption to the enterprise's business. But with NTAP-specific cache, enterprise data that is by definition constantly in use, would be distributed and duplicated over a nationwide web of filers. Much much more difficult and technically dicey to add other filer brands to the mix. The danger of disrupting the business would be high. With NTAP cache established in the market, customer loyalty is, um, encouraged :-), and NTAP competitors down the road would be forced to provide "NTAP-cache-compatible" solutions with their filer hardware, thus raising a barrier to entry into NTAP's market. - Dway

To: mariner who wrote (2042)	1/10/2000 5:49:00 PM
From: Cirruslvr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10934

Mariner - RE: "In that case, allow me to say thanks for the entire report. Good of you to take the time." I'm just trying to give back some of what I've gotten from this thread. :) "Seems our NTAP's growth rate is being upgraded by more and more analysts of late." I find it amazing NTAP is growing faster as it is getting bigger. Does anyone know if NTAP manufacturers their products themselves and if there is capacity to handle the increasing sales in the future?