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To: pat mudge who wrote (13825)11/1/2000 9:22:38 AM
From: Jim Willie CB  Respond to of 24042
 
over weekend, saw nice show on JackWelch of GE
he requires a regular cycle of group managers and individual workers to become informed and educated on the benefits and opportunities of internet usage to bring down costs, aid in communication, and ease bottlenecks

B2B internet has a long long way to go

I cannot forget Genl Motors last spring saying they saw a $1 billion in cost savings from internet usage in the coming year

fiberoptic and internet aint no bubble
too much efficiency, productivity, reduced costs involved
not to mention longrange commitment
/ jim



To: pat mudge who wrote (13825)11/1/2000 8:23:10 PM
From: gbh  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 24042
 
Bloom is off the optical rose, keynoter says
By Craig Matsumoto
EE Times
(11/01/00, 12:20 p.m. EST)




WASHINGTON — In an upbeat but sobering keynote address to the Next Generation Networks conference, John McQuillan told network vendors that they could still get rich even though networking stocks have fallen in the past year.

In the so-called new economy, old investment rules still apply, and that's not necessarily bad, said McQuillan, president of McQuillan Ventures and chairman of organizer of the NGN conference.

"In '95 or '96, we had the revolutionary forces come into play," McQuillan said. "We've had another turning point this year, heavily driven by financial considerations. But after all, we do have to have profitable companies to help us build these networks."

Using a "revolutionary" theme, McQuillan illustrated his point by showing the icons of Communist society: Marx, Lenin, and Mao. In discussing several aspects of the industry, he listed in each case the "thesis" of old-world networking and the radical "antithesis" of the new economy, and concluded every time that the reality lay somewhere in between.

For example, some believe incumbent carriers will run next-generation networks that are simply bigger and faster than today's networks, McQuillan said, while an opposing view holds that future networks will be built by entirely new companies with entirely new technologies. McQuillan's middle view sees an industry of "creative destruction," where traditional leaders remain large, but only through the constant acquisition of startups with new ideas.

Sticking to his metaphor, McQuillan said, "We've had several years of revolution, and now the incumbents have figured out how to start their own counter-revolution."

The cycle continues in part because of the flow of venture capital, which has created a glut of startups, which has led to the industry's frenzy of acquisitions, McQuillan said.

"Probably the odds of a networking chip company having an IPO are 50 to 1," he said. In the optical networking space, where McQuillan counted more than 200 startups, the odds are probably not so long, but the acquisitions are likely to stay plentiful, he said.

Business slide

"The turning point came a few months ago when a few of the CLECs [competitive local exchange carriers] stopped paying their bills," he said. CLECs were startup challengers to incumbent telephone carriers, and their need for new equipment helped fuel the networking sector. But CLECs have begun to fail, leading to lost business for the likes of Cisco and Ciena.

That's not to say things are bad. Nortel Networks, for example, showed year-over-year growth of 90 percent for its optical Internet business for the quarter ended Sept. 30. But Wall Street apparently had expected much more from Nortel and the rest of the industry, and networking stocks have sagged during the past several weeks as a result.

Many NGN participants and attendees dismissed the drop in stock prices, saying it derived from investors' impatience and high expectations, not from the actual health of the networking industry.

"Wall Street looks at very short windows, looking at companies that aren't having the kind of fiscal numbers that [investors] want and pulling the rug out from under them while they're trying to build their businesses," said Nathan Kalowski, vice president of marketing for privately-held startup Kenetec Inc. (Naugatuck, Conn.).

For CLECs to reach stability, they have to collect customers in thousands of multitenant buildings, a process that takes time, Kalowski said. "It's a lucrative opportunity. The issue is that it's capital-intensive opportunity," he said.



To: pat mudge who wrote (13825)11/1/2000 9:05:40 PM
From: 16yearcycle  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 24042
 
To All: as you know, NT filed another doc. today, trying to clarify their guidance of no slowdown. SO WHAT IS THIS HEADLINE AFTER HOURS???
----------------------------------------------

Nortel Spots the Tip of the Optical-Slowdown Iceberg
By Scott Moritz
Senior Writer
11/1/00 6:03 PM ET

To some eyes, Nortel's (NT:NYSE - news) oddly timed earnings and revenue warning Wednesday looks like the tip of the iceberg for a cooling optical-networking sector.

The Nortel Plunge
Charting optical networker's descent

Sanford Bernstein analyst Paul Sagawa says the optical stalwart's move to trim first-quarter growth targets illustrates a much larger problem: Even the strongest companies in this pricey sector have an increasingly tenuous grasp on just how much product their customers will be able to afford in the next year. The cash crunch that the network builders are facing is fueling a spending slowdown that could affect any company -- even ones that have executed flawlessly -- soon.

The bottom line: There is a shortage of cash to buy new equipment. The optical boom has peaked. An entire industry whose plans were predicated on unstinting demand must now confront uncertainty.

That Smell
Sagawa, who was among the first on Wall Street to note the slowing spending among big network builders, says that a gap in communications with its cash-strapped buyers means Nortel is only beginning to catch a whiff of the decreasing spending at customers such as WorldCom (WCOM:Nasdaq - news), AT&T (T:NYSE - news) and Williams Communications (WCG:NYSE - news).

Big Spenders
Top five telcos in projected 2000 capital spending
Company Projected 2000 outlay ($billions)
Verizon (VZ:NYSE) 16
AT&T (T:NYSE) 14
SBC (SBC:NYSE) 13
Qwest (Q:NYSE) 9
WorldCom (WCOM:Nasdaq) 8
Source: Companies, analyst reports.

"We had a little euphoria yesterday and a one-day rally because Alcatel (ALA:NYSE - news) put up a good number," says Sagawa. "But this [Nortel guidance] is a big chunk of bad news, and I think there is a lot more to come." Nortel stock slipped $1.75 Wednesday to close at $43.75.

The big-spending phone and Internet service providers have said one after another that they will be pulling out their checkbooks less often next year as they seek to preserve precious cash. With the IPO market all but dried up and bond payments soaking up excess cash, network builders that once were flush are finding they have no choice but to cut back on their ambitious buildout plans.

"The optical boom has been driven by the buildout of 14 North American and about 14 European optical networks, and the money is drying up for those deals," says Sagawa.

Blind Spot Blues
Word of a cash crunch has trickled slowly through the market in the past three months, catching a wider awareness only in recent weeks. In August, TheStreet.com reported that Williams had begun to liquidate its investment to help make its network expansion budget. Then in September, AT&T's network chief told TheStreet.com that spending would "level off" next year.

Then last week, WorldCom, AT&T and Williams said equipment spending would be pulled back.

How does Nortel, with its sales force talking to customers every day, miss this trend?

A Nortel spokesman said he couldn't comment on the financial affairs of the service providers, and sticks by the company's official guidance.

But Sagawa, who worked as a Lucent (LU:NYSE - news) salesman when it was still a part of AT&T, says there's a classic blind spot in the buyer/seller picture.

Equipment-company executives work with projections they get from their sales teams. And the sales forces get their signals from customers, the engineers and the network planners at the phone companies. The engineers make the buying decisions, but they have to get money from the accountants.

Simon Sings: Dry Up
That is where the trouble comes, says Sagawa. In years past, the engineers picked the products and the bean counters came up with the money, which amid the Nasdaq boom and the global tech buildout, was easy to come by. But this time it's different: Now the bean counters are saying there is no money, and the engineers' wish lists aren't getting funded.

Sagawa, whose firm does no investment banking, in September was the first prominent Wall Street equipment analyst to point to the inevitable impact the falling fortunes of the equipment buyers would have on the equipment sellers. At that time, he cut Nortel and Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq - news) to market perform.

"We did a lot of analysis of the cash flow and potential cash flow with the carriers," says Sagawa. "They need to find $100 billion to keep up the spending growth, and it's not there."

Of course, Sagawa could be wrong about this, and certainly he has caught his fair share of heat for throwing cold water on the bonfire. His sell-side peers at the major firms have largely stuck to their bullish projections. But as more network builders see their shares plummet, their access to loans diminish and their revenue fall, the evidence of a crunch gets harder to ignore.

Hitting Snooze
Nortel's press release Wednesday was intended to clarify its outlook for this year and next. And at first blush, the guidance confirmed the forecast the company gave analysts on an earnings call last week. Yet the company also forecast revenue for the first quarter of 2001 of $8.1 billion to $8.3 billion, a 28% to 31% increase over the previous year, which is significantly lower than the 30% to 35% revenue growth the company expects for the year. In addition, the company said earnings would be 16 cents a share, a penny lower than the consensus.

Getting a slow start in what looks to be a slower-than-recent-norms spending year raises the question of just how Nortel expects to stay within the growth range it has projected.

The Nortel spokesman says that although Sagawa is entitled to his opinion, surging Internet traffic will fuel demand for new, higher-capacity networks.

This buildout story has long been "a matter of faith," says Sagawa. "But look, if people don't have money, they can't spend it. That's the reality of it."

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Now, I am completely dumfounded. We are absolutely being drilled by institutions exercising their power to create volatility. I am in shock. I urge you to write letters to this guy. He has purposely bent the truth.

I am putting this same link on a few threads. I am not spamming...and I have a small position in NT, but a large one in sdli and jdsu.



To: pat mudge who wrote (13825)11/1/2000 11:26:48 PM
From: tekboy  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 24042
 
FYI

news.morningstar.com

tekboy@gopatgo.com