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To: Dealer who wrote (6711)	3/10/2000 9:15:00 AM
From: Dealer	Respond to of 35685

"A"--Agilent outlines aggressive growth goals By Andrea Orr PALO ALTO, Calif., March 9 (Reuters) - Agilent Technologies Inc. [A-news] Thursday outlined aggressive growth goals and said it hoped its new status as a company independent from Hewlett-Packard would push it to pursue a leading role in the Internet and wireless industries. In its first briefing with securities analysts since Agilent was spun off from Hewlett-Packard Co. [HWP-news] late last year, company officials sought to raise the profile of its test and measurement equipment products, which serve a critical function in several industries, but are not always well understood by investors. "We see (the spin-off) creating a greater sense of urgency in solving our customers' problems," Agilent Chief Executive Edward Barnholt said at the meeting. "The spotlight has put a much more intense focus on us and created a greater sense of accountability. There's always the sense when you are part of a larger company that if things don't go well, there's another part of the business that can make up for it." As part of Hewlett-Packard, Agilent's operations had made up the test and measurement division, which despite being a major contributor to earnings, kept a low profile. Agilent makes a wide array of products that are used, often behind the scenes, to test the reliability of other technologies in the semiconductor, health-care and communications industries. The spotlight cast on Agilent since its spin-off has so far been very kind to the company. In the three months since its November initial public offering, Agilent's stock has tripled. The share price shot up again early this week after news of a breakthrough new technology it said could help fuel the "communications revolution" by expanding the bandwidth of fiber-optic networks. Limited bandwidth is a key factor limiting the growth of the Internet and the introduction of richer and faster online features. On Thursday, Agilent's stock rose 1 to close at 153, up from its November IPO price of 30. Despite this strong run in its short history as a public company, Agilent faces many challenges, Barnholt said. He said the new fiber-optic technology, known as a Photonic Switching Platform, was not expected to generate significant revenues in the near term and that Agilent still needed to streamline its operations create a more efficient company. He said Agilent was targeting earnings growth of around 6 percent this year and 8 percent next year, and expects revenues to grow 15 percent in 2001. But it also has a lot of redundancies left over from its recent spin-off that need to be addressed, he said. "In our speed to get up and running as a separate company, we cloned all the old Hewlett-Packard IT systems," he said. "Frankly, they're very old and complicated and have added a lot of costs."