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Technology Stocks : F5 Networks, Inc. (FFIV) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Conan who wrote (1331)	12/20/2000 10:09:02 PM
From: Analog Kid	Respond to of 1801

Conan, I agree with you that this company has many similar characteristics to CHKP a few years ago. I don't want to rub it in but I also started buying CHKP in early 97 and kept buying through early 99 (it's final plunge when NETA announced that "Y2K" was hurting their sales). Have held on to a good portion of my shares (started selling some december of last year) and of course have been rewarded greatly. Like CHKP, F5 is nicely profitable, fast growing, and has a product based on distributed software rather than embedded locally in a hardware product. Like CHKP it is also more than a 1-trick pony, building on its basic platform with products for caching, content management, and global website load-balancing/management (something a switch can never do). It's got a huge installed base of BIG-IP customers to sell these new products to, as well as continued growth through new customers. I started buying earlier this year in the 40s and have slowly bought more as it has dropped (my last buy was at 18 a couple of days ago). Company's management also seems to be good. I don't have the same degree of ultra-confidence as I did with CHKP (which bordered on arrogance in my conviction that I was right and the market was definitely wrong), but I think there is a good chance this company does very, very well. I think it's a big plus that F5 sells to lots of Fortune 500 companies that manage their own websites as well as ISPs and web-hosting companies. Any thoughtful discussion on F5's management, products vs the competition, etc. on this board would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps we could all collaborate on further researching the company. Good luck AK