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Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (5105)	3/22/2000 8:59:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 14638

"This market is still emerging. It's 2001 and 2002 when this is really going to hit..." Ken- It's pretty clear NT has recently spent quite a bit of money(ie, stock) for a strong position in the optical space. And they certainly seem to be well positioned for whatever happens in the core. But I don't have a firm idea of the size of the overall market that NT is going after with their optical spending spree. To be honest, they've done so much buying, I lost track of their vision. Have you run across any stats about the overall market they plan to be in with their optical plans? I'm wondering if Roth has put some numbers to the plan of attack? Maybe on their website. Any url's would be appreciated. And I'm wondering if the author is correct above, then where is NT going to be making their profit, while waiting for the optical tide to come in? Thanks. -MikeM(From Florida) ************************* Nortel's Optical Shopping Spree By Kathleen Cholewka New York March 22- Nortel Networks (nyse: NT) is trying to buy its way to an all-optical network. Yesterday, Nortel announced it was buying optical component maker Coretek, a six-year-old Wilmington, Mass.-based startup for $1.43 billion. The acquisition is just the latest in a series of expensive purchases by the Bramptom, Ontario networking giant. Just last week, Nortel spent $3.25 billion on Xros, a company that makes an all-optical switch, and in December, it acquired Qtera for $3.25 billion. Qtera, a small company from Boca Raton, Fla., was working on equipment that extends the range of optical transmissions. Coretek's specialty is optical components, which let carriers manipulate the nitty-gritty details underlying big bandwidth networks. The logic behind these purchases is no secret. Nortel wants to beat Lucent Technologies (nyse: LU) and Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO) in the race to build an all-optical network. "Our acquisitions are driven by time-to-market decisions, they're about acceleration into optical networking," says Don Smith, president of the optical Internet unit at Nortel. "We assess these companies and place our bets the right away," he says. Telecommunications companies like AT&T (nyse: T), Qwest (nyse: Q) and Williams are already spending billions to build what Cisco CEO John Chambers bills as the Next Network--a super high-speed global network for data, voice and video. The company that can supply these carriers with the necessary gear stands to make a mint. Rather than kick out the cash to buy a bunch of hot startups--some composed of little more than a clever idea--Lucent is trying to develop most of its optical networking products internally. Although buying rather than building is usually the fastest way to market--witness Cisco?s success with this strategy throughout the 1990s--Lucent has scored some notable successes in-house. Last year, Lucent beat Nortel to market with an all-optical router, which will be a key component of next-generation networks. Contrary to Cisco's usual frenetic style (in 1998, it bought nine companies), the company has been taking a slower approach to the optical networking market. The company has bought just a few strategic players--such as optical switch makers Monterey Networks and Cerent Corporation, both on the same day in August 1999 for a combined $7.4 billion, and the optical networking division of Pirelli Systems for $2.15 billion in December 1999. But never count Cisco out. The optical networking market is still in its infancy, with time-to-market relatively unimportant. "This market is still emerging. It's 2001 and 2002 when this is really going to hit,"** says Chris Nicoll, analyst at Current Analyst.