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Technology Stocks : Meade Instruments Corp MEAD -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Craig Bartels who wrote (145)	3/31/2000 9:22:00 AM
From: Craig Bartels	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 175

wall street journal article part I by: chbartel (24/M/Zionsville, IN) 3/30/00 11:52 pm Msg: 1922 of 1971 Not sure if this was posted yet or not. the company is decent, but not at this price! Stock Rally Raises Questions About Laser Internet Access By JASON ANDERS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION Investors have been flooding Internet message boards with speculation about Meade Instruments ever since the telescope maker's stock doubled on word of ties to a high-tech Internet firm. On March 15, message boards were buzzing with rumors that Meade was somehow involved with TeraBeam Networks, a Seattle start-up that aims to deliver ultra high-speed Internet access through laser beams. Shares of Meade doubled to a high of 60 that day, prompting a flood of calls to the company from curious investors -- and from the Nasdaq Stock Market, which also wanted to know what all the excitement was about. In response to the Nasdaq inquiry, Meade issued a press release confirming that it had indeed signed a deal to manufacture optical components and other related products for use TeraBeam's networks, but Meade shared no details of the new relationship. Shares of the Irvine, Calif., company since have climbed as high as 76, and were up 1/4 to 69 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market Thursday. But investors may be getting a bit ahead of themselves. TeraBeam's technology is unproven and demand for the service is questionable. What's more, Meade has cautioned analysts that it doesn't expect to see any material revenue from the deal until sometime next year, at the earliest. No one, including Meade, is sure exactly how investors learned about the agreement with TeraBeam, but it appears word may have leaked at a computer show attended by TeraBeam officials. "Maybe someone heard something during a presentation, or saw a slide with our logo on it somewhere. We're really not sure ourselves," says Brent Christensen, a spokesman for Meade. TeraBeam says it isn't sure how word got out, either. Meade says it wasn't ready to announce the news, in large part because many of the details have yet to be worked out. "Certainly everyone ought to keep in mind the nature of TeraBeam's business at this point. Any effect on Meade from this business is entirely dependent on TeraBeam's ability to execute its business plan," says Mr. Christensen. Indeed, TeraBeam faces a number of challenges in its quest to be a networking powerhouse. The company's technology is geared toward businesses that need high-speed Internet access but can't afford to rip up a street to lay fiber-optic cable, or don't have access to a roof for a satellite-based system. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------