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Technology Stocks : Ciena (CIEN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SJS who wrote (9291)	6/26/2000 5:30:00 PM
From: jghutchison	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12623

Steve, Can you show me the path in your thinking that leads you to believe these guys become Ciena's customer? Why not LU, CSCO, SCMR, AVNX, NT? Frankly, this sounds like what Q (Qwest) has, and they went with NT. Williams went with SCMR. Ciena's nailing any part of the deal is not a given. However, let's look at the probabilities. Avanex does not even qualify as it is a startup firm offering an edge access product. The Aerie network will be a core backbone system, as opposed to metro, or edge access. Their needs will be for fiber, long haul DWDM, optical switching, and intelligent software. Lucent, Nortel, Ciena, Cisco, Sycamore, Corvis etc. will be logical candidates to benefit from Aerie's buildout. Not necessarily in that order. Cisco, whose strength is in marketing to enterprise, has a weak DWDM offering thru its Pirelli acquisition. Williams did a back door deal with Sycamore...and front door deals with Ciena. (Check out the Supercomm news re:technology awards). I understand that Qwest was burned by Nortel on the installation SONET gear that was passed off as cutting edge technology. Qwest is now a Ciena customer. The Aerie network consortium is big...very big, and stands to grow even larger as other pipeline companies join in on the fun. After all, pipelines are regulated utilities. But, bandwidth-on-demand is wide open. Free enterprise works, in spite of Uncle Sugar's best efforts. This consortium is well funded, expertly staffed, and in the right place at the right time. The demand for bandwidth is immense, so there should be no problem in leasing the service. Their only constraint is getting the fiber. Bear in mind that the latest technology also offers the lowest cost of service, so pricing is not an issue. Systems hardware contracts will most likely be granted to the top two or three vendors. This consortium does not readily fall into the good old boy teleco network. It is unencumbered with past ties to Lucent and/or Nortel. Therefore, Ciena stands to get its share of a substantial pie. No single vendor will receive the entire order. That would be lunacy. Ciena's only handicap that I perceive is a weakness in vendor financing. This may be offset by Ciena's superb ability to execute and deliver outstanding technology on time along with excellent field support. And let's throw in the CoreDirector, and intelligent software. Potential for a Ciena grand slam. Jack Hutchison