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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (17449)	2/7/2000 2:35:00 PM
From: mauser96	Respond to of 54805

The use of LED in general probably has crossed the chasm. If that's the case, it probably won't be long until blue LED, (and the white LED they make possible) in turn cross the chasm. These colors likely have more applications than most of the colors that came before.There is a capacity restraint at this time, but this will be fixed soon. All the rest of Cree's products are far in the future, so at this stage all we can really talk about is LED. I certainly agree that CREE isn't suitable for a major position, but at least for me it's good enough for a minor position. It's interesting that the CREE board is so active, plus all the mention it gets on G&K. I believe we may be seeing a bit of the self fulfilling prophecy effect on SI.

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (17449)	2/7/2000 2:48:00 PM
From: Pete Mimmack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Re: Cree and an Early Majority. UF - Seems it would be good to define an Early Majority for Cree. They currently have 2 auto mfgs (VW and I think Audi), one cell phone mfg (Nokia, tho' only 1 model), and Sony's PSII for Early Adopters. In addition, there's talk of two more unannounced auto wins (from BofA report). Clearly, an excellent start. Would you be willing to consider an EM to consist of a group twice this size? Three times? Or perhaps a win at GM? or maybe the majority of Nokia's product lines? I believe that the definitive answer will only be known after it occurs, but it seems this exercise could be useful. Pete

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (17449)	2/7/2000 3:34:00 PM
From: Sunny	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

RE: Cree, chasm crossing I have a different perspective on "Refer to the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, which is on page 21 of the original fm. Despite their lead and market share, CREE is still in the stage where their users are Innovators and Early Adopters. There is no chance of Bowling Alley or Tornado activity until they cross the Chasm and begin to gain customers of the Early Majority persuasion. That space between the Early Adopters to the Early Majority is the dreaded Chasm, and as Geoff says in his book, Crossing the Chasm," Referring to "Inside the tornado" (I loaned my rfm to an employee), Page 22-24. Moore lists 5 criteria 1. Is the target customer well funded and accessible to our sales force? 2. Do they have a compelling reason to buy? 3. Can we today with the help of our partners deliver a whole product to fulfill that reason to buy? 4. Is there no entrenched competion that could prevent us from getting a fair shot at this business? 5. If we win this segment, can we leverage it to enter additional segments? I think in Cree's case the answer to each of these questions is yes when talking about LED's. Consider their design wins with Nokia and the dashboard lighting with Volkswagen and Audi. These are 2 similar, but different applications and the decision makers that were involved in allowing there companies to move forward on this are clearly the early majority pragmatists. ( from P16, Pragmatists do not love technology for its own sake. They believe in evolution not revolution. They are interested in making their companies systems work effectively and look to adopt innovations only after a proven track record.) I agree with Mountain lady Cree has crossed the chasm with at least one use of SiC. Further I believe that because of the material properties of SiC, we will see multiple chasms and bowling alleys being addressed concurrently, albeit with staggered starts. This company seems to be different from the others we study and dissect in that it is addressing a number of different markets. Since they are only reporting YOY growth of ~70%, I think we can rightly conclude that they are not in the tornado, but they ae definitely knocking down different application pins in huge consumer market products. I do agree with your point about Cree not being a confirmed Gorilla and therefore not qualified selection for a pure GGamer. Yet how many of us are playing pure Gorilla Games? Sunny

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (17449)	2/8/2000 1:46:00 PM
From: mtnlady	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

UF I have been searching everywhere and cannot find what CREE's current market share in the blue and green LED market is right now. Do you know? The closest mention to it that I can find is this tidbit picked up from another post... "Although Cree first introduced a blue LED product in 1989, I believe that Cree has only in the last couple years turned into a serious production company with the introduction of the conductive buffer layer LED. In this time Cree has come to provide more Nitride based Blue, and Green LED'S to the world market than any other company according to Strategies Unlimited. If this trend continues, it won't be a surprise when Cree comes to dominate the world's Blue, Green Nitride based LED market." Market share, and market share growth in the nitride blue/green LED markets I think will give us a good indication of market acceptance of CREE/SiC. Also of note would be Nitride versus other forms of blue/green LED's.