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Technology Stocks : JDS Uniphase (JDSU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: t2 who wrote (8467)	4/6/2000 12:05:00 AM
From: LBstocks	Respond to of 24042

E-TEK to Provide Optical Sub-Systems for ONI Systems Under Multi-Year Contract San Jose, Calif., April 5, 2000 - E-TEK Dynamics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ETEK) today announced a multi-year supply agreement with ONI Systems Corp. to supply fiber optic communications sub-systems for ONI's ONLINE? product family. E-TEK's new manufacturing operation specializing in integrated modules and sub-systems moved from initial design to delivery of first shipments in two months to secure the agreement. "To meet our customer commitments, we require a responsive partner that can meet our design specifications, price objectives and short lead times. E-TEK has committed to meet these needs and help us achieve our time to market objectives," said Hugh Martin, chief executive officer of ONI Systems. Under the agreement, E-TEK will provide four sub-systems for ONI's ONLINE9000? and ONLINE7000? optical hardware platforms engineered for the metro and access markets. E-TEK's sub-systems will provide wideband and dense wavelength division multiplexing, restoration and power monitoring capabilities. "The agreement between ONI and E-TEK is a tangible sign that our investments in subsystem manufacturing are already providing solutions for our customers," said Michael Fitzpatrick, chairman and CEO of E-TEK Dynamics. "By handling all aspects of manufacturing from procurement to board design and full assembly, we offer our customers the opportunity to get their products into production quickly, cost-effectively, and with the ability to scale up easily." E-TEK anticipated the trend toward out-sourcing by forming a dedicated operation for the design and manufacture of integrated modules and sub-systems in mid-1999. This operation now includes 64,000 square feet of Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protected manufacturing. Current production includes erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, configurable add drops, protection ring modules, power monitoring modules and other products customized to meet customer specifications. The integrated modules combine discrete devices, fiber and intelligent circuitry manufactured by E-TEK and other suppliers as required. About ONI Systems ONI Systems develops, markets and sells all-optical networking equipment specifically designed to address bandwidth and service limitations of regional and metropolitan networks. Our products allow communications service providers to rapidly build high-capacity metro networks that are flexible, scalable and able to support multiple services on a single platform. Our products include the ONLINE9000?, which is available now, and the ONLINE7000?, which is available in the second quarter of 2000. These products incorporate OPTX?, an operating system for wavelength and service management in optical networks; and OLMP?, an optical link management protocol suite for internetworking between the optical transport and data or voice switching layers of the network. For more information about ONI Systems and its products, visit ONI's Web site at onisystems.com About E-TEK Dynamics E-TEK Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ETEK), headquartered in San Jose, designs and manufactures high quality components and modules for fiberoptic systems. E-TEK's wavelength division multiplexers ("WDMs") are designed to increase the bandwidth capacity of fiberoptic networks. Other E-TEK components, including isolators, couplers and integrated optics, are critical in enabling optical communications systems. These products are utilized in terrestrial and submarine long-haul fiberoptic networks as well as in short-haul markets, such as metro and cable. More information on E-TEK is available at e-tek.com.

To: t2 who wrote (8467)	4/6/2000 12:27:00 AM
From: LBstocks	Respond to of 24042

Prudential's new report on JDSU: EQUITY RESEARCH JDS UNIPHASE APRIL 5, 2000 JDSU: ACQUIRES CRONOS INTEGRATED MICROSYSTEMS FOR $750 MM IN STOCK; CRONOS? MEMS TECHNOLOGY FILLS IN A KEY PRODUCT GAP AT JDSU Subject: JDS Uniphase (JDSU?$107)-OTC TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT COM EPS INI OPINION Current: Strong Buy/SBI Analysts: John H. Butler (212) 778-1488 Prior: Nancy H. Wu, CFA (212) 778-8929 Risk: High 12-Month Target Price: $188 Ind. Div.: $0.00 Yield: NM Shares: 750.0 mil. 52-Wk.Range: $153-$12 EPS FY Year P/E 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Actual 06/99 $ 0.17 629.4X $ 0.03 $ 0.04 $ 0.04 $ 0.06 Current 06/00 $ 0.37E 289.1X $ 0.08A $ 0.09A $ 0.10E $ 0.11E Current 06/01 $ 0.55E 194.5X $ 0.12E $ 0.13E $ 0.15E $ 0.16E Yesterday morning, JDSU announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Cronos Integrated Microsystems for $750 MM in stock. With an annual revenue run rate of approximately $10 MM, Cronos is a relatively small acquisition for JDSU but a strategically important deal. The acquisition of Cronos fills in a key hole in JDSU?s product portfolio with the addition of MEMS-based optical switching products. In our view, the market for optical switches is in the very early stages of emerging and so, this deal is particularly timely for JDSU. Management hosted a conference call yesterday morning to review the details of the acquisition. This transaction fills in a key gap in JDSU?s product line. Cronos is a leading manufacturer of MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) devices, which are mechanically-controlled microstructures used to switch, cross-connect, add and drop wavelengths entirely in the optical realm. Importantly, MEMS technology can be incorporated into a broad range of optical modules including optical switches, attentuators, gain equalizers, dispersion compensators and programmable add/drop modules. Despite this broad range of potential applications, we believe that JDSU is most interested in using Cronos? MEMS technology in the development of optical switching products. Currently, JDSU?s switching products include polymer- and opto-mechanical-based switches and until this deal was announced, JDSU lacked a MEMS-based optical switching solution. We believe that MEMS is beginning to gain broad acceptance as the technology of choice for optical switch developers. Relative to other optical switching technologies, MEMS scales well which is a key advantage of this new technology. As a result, MEMS devices are now being used in the design of large switch matrices, which are used in large systems designed to manage traffic in the network core. Going forward, we believe that MEMS technology will figure heavily in the design of optical switches and cross-connects. According to market researchers, the market for MEMS devices at the component level could grow to a $1 billion market opportunity by 2003. For our part, we believe that the market for optical switching systems will grow to a $5 billion market by 2003. We are leaving our fiscal 2000 and 2001 estimates unchanged. While Cronos is currently shipping product, the market for MEMS technology is still in the early stages of emerging. As a result, we expect this transaction to be only mildly dilutive to our fiscal 2000 EPS estimate by less than a penny. Having said this, we are maintaining our FY00 estimate of $0.37 on $1.3 billion in sales, as we believe that any dilution from this deal is likely to be off-set by continued strength in JDSU?s core business. We are also maintaining our fiscal 2001 estimate of $0.55 on $2.2 billion in sales. On the conference call, JDSU?s management also provided an update on the status of its pending merger with E-TEK Dyanmics. On April 2, JDSU announced that the Department of Justice (DOJ) requested additional information from JDSU for its pending acquisition of E-TEK. Despite this second request, JDSU continues to maintain that this deal will close in June or July of this year. While it is difficult to predict the DOJ?s ultimate decision regarding this proposed merger, we believe that if the DOJ includes captive suppliers (i.e., Nortel, Lucent, Alcatel and others) in its definition of the optical components market, than this deal stands a good chance of getting approved. In summary, we view the acquisition of Cronos as a strong addition to JDSU?s growing product portfolio. In the long run, we believe that MEMS technology will emerge as a key enabling technology for true optical switches. As a result, the addition of Cronos should significantly enhance JDSU?s efforts to develop products for this new emerging product market. Additionally, this merger is consistent with JDSU?s strategy to broaden its product portfolio, enhance its modules production capability and add to its overall manufacturing capacity. As a result, we continue to rate the shares of JDSU Strong Buy with a 12-month target of $188.

To: t2 who wrote (8467)	4/6/2000 12:39:00 AM
From: LBstocks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24042

Article from Ottawa Citizen about JDSU: Wednesday 5 April 2000 JDS buys Cronos for $750M Bert Hill The Ottawa Citizen JDS Uniphase Corp. bought new mirror-based technology yesterday that could drive the next generation of huge telecommunication switches. The $750-million U.S. stock deal for Cronos Integrated Microsystems Inc. of North Carolina is a modest piece of JDS's $24-billion shopping spree for new technology in the past year. But the addition of the Cronos technology puts JDS into the race to develop all-optical switching technology that will meet the needs of telephone companies swamped by Internet traffic. JDS, based in Nepean and San Jose, California, also revealed that U.S. regulators are seeking more information regarding its $15.8-billion deal for E-Tek Dynamics. The company said the regulators have not raised the question of JDS having to sell off some assets to allow the deal to proceed. JDS said it still expects the E-Tek deal to go through in the next three months. The Cronos takeover will not require regulatory approval. Analysts praised the JDS deal for Cronos. Michael Urlocker of Scotia Capital had downgraded his recommendation on JDS from "buy" to "hold" last week partly on grounds that the company had failed to take a strong position in the emerging technology. "I think this is the most exciting acquisition we have seen from JDS." JDS chief executive Kevin Kalkhoven said major telephone companies are pushing for "mega-switches" that have 25 times the capacity of present products. JDS president Jozef Straus predicted the company will start putting the new technology into several products within a few months and produce a new generation of switching products in 18 months. The mirror technology, officially called MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), is one emerging answer to the biggest challenges facing fibre-optic technology: The fat pipe isn't very bright. Fibre-optics moves large volumes of telecommunication traffic on streams of lights quicker and cheaper than copper wires or satellites. But it can't regenerate weak signals or switch traffic without expensive and bulky electronic conversions. The new technology, based on tiny mirrors pivoting in three dimensions, bounces and manages the beams of light cheaply and efficiently. Mr. Kalkhoven said a MEMS switch with 256 tiny three-dimensional mirrors occupies less than a square inch of space. Mr. Straus said that big switches based on conventional technology could cover a table top. The technology has attracted the interest of several big players including Nortel Networks, which bought Xros Inc. for $3.25 billion in stock last month, and Lucent Technologies, which has promised to deliver a switch this fall. Agilent Technologies Inc., a company being spun off from Hewlett-Packard Co., and closely held Optical Micro-Machines Inc. of San Diego are developing switches of their own. The mirror system has also attracted rival technologies based on liquid crystal, championed by Corning Inc., and balloon-jet technology, led by Agilent and others. Mr. Kalkhoven said that JDS believes the mirror technology is the best approach. Cronos, founded in 1992 at the Microelectronics Centre of North Carolina, has 67 employees and annual sales of $10 million U.S. It does most of its work developing prototype equipment on silicon. Mr. Brattner said some customers for Cronos technology are now releasing big new router gear which drive traffic on the Internet. Though he would not disclose the names, Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks, which dominate the field, have just released such equipment. Mr. Brattner said the company plans to expand capacity by 500 per cent in the next few months to keep up with demand. ottawacitizen.com