Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Up and coming optical startups -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JW@KSC who wrote (42)	10/18/2000 12:34:19 PM
From: Sharck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 84

Have to agree with JW here. I have worked for JDSU in the past and can tell you these guys are stretching themselves to the limits to try to meet the insatiable demand for their products. Hiring thousands of able bodies and building new plants all over the globe. Companies will not survive with out it and will not cut corners here in funding this infrastructure play. Understand the argument of a future band width glut but I would estimate we are still several years away.

To: JW@KSC who wrote (42)	10/18/2000 1:45:38 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 84

Hi JW, It's nice to read such a bullish assessment of where things are headed. <g> Re: Guess where Fiber Companies are going in the next Decade. I'd guess a period of consolidation as the industry matures. Components will have to become planarized and their production automated. Thus, companies like NEWP will play a very important role. Many of the smaller FO shops will take technology dead-ends. Many companies will be starved for capital after the initial orgy of money that is flowing into the industry today. Valuations will normalize as Mr. Market starts to view fiber optics as just another part of a normal economy, instead of a revolutionary breakthrough with an exciting story. Re: Bandwidth is a Commodity, and like Oil, the Optic Sheiks will not see a Ceiling on Wealth and Valuation. The same was said about radio in 1928, about railroads in 1872, about tulips in 1634. The difference between oil and bandwidth is fundamental. Oil is a non-renewable resource that becomes ever more expensive to recover. Bandwidth is completely renewable (so much so the concept hardly applies) and expandable as we see it today, and will be available at a declining price point for the foreseeable future. While the oil companies have a strict discipline about profitability, this is not the case in the telecommunications industry, which seems caught up in a competitive frenzy for market share that is, frankly, starting to frighten the bondsmen who are financing this industry. As I see it, the only companies that I need to pay attention to as possible investments are those with unassailable intellectual property rights, legions of advanced researchers and a lock on future developments. I see none today, as the tendency in the industry is for one technology to leapfrog another, and thus obsolete the fleeting advantage of the prior leaders. YMMV, Ray