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 : Elastic Networks: ELAS (Nasdaq) ELAS -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gg cox who wrote (117)	11/18/2000 5:16:24 PM
From: W. Randy Gast	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173

Now THAT is funny. I usually just avoid viewing stockhouse links but that was well worth the time. Like the commercial says " I just made fifteen dollars ... like it was nuthin' " I think I'll email the company and get some spin back. I know what side they're on ...ggg

To: gg cox who wrote (117)	11/22/2000 5:23:49 PM
From: teevee	Respond to of 173

Are ELAS sales based upon risky vender financing? The DSL market looks like customers are near broke and small. Perhaps this is the future, if you can call it that, for ELAS? Why Copper Mountain Isn't Out of the Woods By Herb Greenberg Senior Columnist Originally posted at 6:31 AM ET 11/21/00 on RealMoney.com This you can say about Copper Mountain (CMTN:Nasdaq - news), one of the many troubled makers of DSL equipment: The risks associated with the quality of its customers aren't going down. But you wouldn't know it unless you did some digging. Take, for example, this nugget from the company's just-released 10-Q: During the third quarter, Copper Mountain agreed to finance a customer purchase of $8.9 million of equipment as part of a four-year, $10 million lease agreement. Who was the customer? Copper Mountain didn't say, but a scan of 10-Qs filed by its customers shows that in July, DSL.net (DSLN:Nasdaq - news) entered into a four-year lease agreement with an unnamed supplier to purchase $8.9 million in network equipment. A mere coincidence? Hard to say. Copper Mountain officials didn't respond to my phone or email inquiries, and a DSL.net spokesman was unable to confirm whether DSL.net was or was not the customer. If DSL.net was the customer, however, you can draw some conclusions. For starters, DSL.net is not in particularly good financial shape. Its stock has fallen from a high of $32.56 this year to its current price of around $1.50; in the most recent quarter it missed revenue and subscriber forecasts. What's more, like other DSL providers, such as Covad (COVD:Nasdaq - news), NorthPoint (NPNT:Nasdaq - news) and Rhythms NetConn (RTHM:Nasdaq - news), DSL.net is cash-flow negative from operations. Regardless of who the customer was, Copper Mountain had to pull out all stops to generate nearly 10% of its revenue for last quarter, a quarter in which it beat estimates by a penny. Would that "beat" have happened had the lease deal not occurred? And what about the financial health of other Copper Mountain customers whose deals were touted in press release after press release by the company in recent months? In October, for example, Copper Mountain announced a deal to sell an unspecified amount of DSL equipment to privately held Birch Telecom. Since then, Birch has sliced around 7% of its workforce, and a few days ago The Kansas City Star quoted Birch's CEO as saying that his company has decided to "back off" deploying its DSL service into new markets "until the storms in the financial markets blow over." Does that mean delayed orders for Copper Mountain? A Birch spokesman was busy in meetings and unable to comment on Monday. And finally, whatever happened to Copper Mountain's $15 million deal with VPNCOM.Net (VPNC:OTC BB - news), which was announced in July? As I pointed out in August, after that deal was struck, VPN warned (oh, by the way!) in its own 10-Q that it had only $13,000 in cash, and its auditors had raised questions about its ability to continue as a going concern. VPN execs, however, said there was no reason to believe the deal wouldn't get done because it was expecting $10 million in new financing within 30 days. Copper Mountain, meanwhile, suggested that it wasn't nervous about the VPN deal because if all else failed it figured it could wind up extending credit to VPN. Oh, really?! Since then, VPNCOM.Net was sold by its parent, VPN Communications, to VPNCOM.Net's CEO, Paul Stevens, for $1 -- (yep, a measly buck) -- and the assumption by Stevens of $1.4 million in VPNCOM.Net's debt. How much of that was owed to Copper Mountain? According to an 8-K filed Monday, a puny $15,822, or about the cost of one piece of equipment. No wonder Copper Mountain warned recently that its fourth quarter would miss analyst estimates. The only question now is whether there are any VPNCOM.Net lookalikes on Copper Mountain's books, and if so, how many?