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

To: SJS who wrote (6401)	8/2/2000 3:08:19 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

Sycamore's Kiel on Competition in Fiber-Optic Gear: Comment By Erik Schatzker Burlingame, California, Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Sycamore Networks Inc. Vice President of Marketing Jeff Kiel comments on competition in the market for equipment to run fiber-optic networks, where Sycamore competes with Nortel Networks Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., Ciena Corp. and others. He spoke in an interview at BCR Enterprises Inc.'s Opticon 2000 conference in Burlingame, California. On what differentiates Sycamore from its competitors: ``Everyone is preaching from the same book. The key thing is execution. That's what we focus on. ``There are two areas where we differentiate. One is the area of hard optics -- the components in our systems that create the light. There we have very rapid development cycles. Our other differentiator is what we call soft optics. ``There are companies out there with different philosophical approaches to this. You have a whole industry of companies specializing in light generation -- the component makers. Where we add value is in managing and controlling the light. ``Most of the time we spend is on software: How you turn raw capacity into services.'' On dealing with the conservative nature of established phone companies: ``We target all public carriers as customers. Out of that spectrum, there will be a smaller number that adopt the technology first -- the young carriers, the more aggressive carriers, and carriers with more data traffic. ``We're actively directing the application of our technology to more traditional carriers. The reality is they've got longer sales cycles and longer technology implementations. ``It's the Internet that's forcing the change. I think it's all understood. The difference is in the adoption time.'' On rivals: ``Who are we up against today? It's Nortel, it's Ciena, it's Lucent. We expect that Cisco (Systems Inc.) over time will be getting their act together in the optical space.'' On how long it will take to develop an all-optical network: ``The all-optical network is a misnomer. What we'll have is all-optical islands. There will always be electronics in between to connect them.'' On what products Sycamore is developing: ``We're going to continue to enhance our existing products. But we're also going to develop next-generation systems to take advantage of leapfrog technologies in hard optics -- Raman amplification, forward error correction to name two. There's a large gap between what we have under development and what we've announced.'' On how Sycamore responds to customer needs: ``It's a partnership. We're in a world where technology is moving so quickly, you need carriers that understand its big problems and a vendor that can map those problems back to technology. But you can't be everything to everybody. Part of where we add value is deciding what we're going to do and what we're not going to do.'' quote.bloomberg.com