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

To: FESHBACH_DISCIPLE who wrote (9542)	2/4/2001 2:14:28 PM
From: The Phoenix	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

FD, Where did you get that quote from - could you post the URL? FWIW Carriers probably are buying the fiber first only because of supply constraints and the time it takes to install. I believe Loose knows this - he should chat with Wendell a little and perhaps he'll get another view. In a perfect world fiber and transmission systems are purchased together since amplifier spacing and total equipment cost is a result of engineering done with both fiber and transmission systems in mind. Fesh. Disciple... you should stick to the things you know... you are wandering outside of your area of expertise this time. OG

To: FESHBACH_DISCIPLE who wrote (9542)	2/4/2001 2:33:49 PM
From: zbyslaw owczarczyk	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14638

How FESBACH has changed the context of CEO of Corning comment: investors.com Corning Puzzled By Stock Market Reaction By Mike Angell Investor's Business Daily You might think investors would rejoice at earnings and revenue gains topping 50%. Well, not if the company is talking about things slowing in the next quarter, especially if that company is one that has been booming, such as Corning Inc. The specialty-glass maker, whose products include fiber-optic components for fast networks, recently reported those big fourth-quarter gains and that outlook for parts of its business. Its shares fell 20% the next day, and haven’t recovered. Corning uttered the one word analysts never want to hear: "softness." They especially don’t want to hear that word applied to Corning’s fastest-growing business, optical telecommunications products. The company said one segment of its optical business, photonics, may be flat in the first quarter compared with the fourth quarter, not vs. the year-earlier period. Photonics accounts for about 15% of Corning’s revenue. It includes the optical amplifiers that boost laser signals down glass cables. Chief Executive John Loose points to the continuing strength in fiber sales as the best guide to his company’s health. He recently spoke with Investor’s Business Daily about the optical market. IBD: Why the flat photonics sales? Loose: There’s just general nervousness from systems makers about what’s going on. We did about $1 billion in photonics revenue last year. We expect photonics revenue to grow about 75% to 90% this year. What people get hung up on is sequential growth, which is, quite frankly, new to us. About a year ago, you started hearing about sequential growth as a way to measure high-growth businesses. It puzzles us a bit. IBD: What’s wrong with sequential measurement? Loose: The business doesn’t move in a linear fashion throughout the year. The first quarter is never a real snappy quarter. There was a complete overreaction to our message. IBD: Is it just amplifier sales that will be flat? Loose: We made more amplifiers in the fourth quarter than we did in all the previous year. Quite frankly, taking a brief pause in manufacturing isn’t that bad. Our visibility on photonics has never been quite as good as it is on fiber. IBD: Why is that? Loose: When carriers start building a new network, the first thing they decide is which fiber they’re going to use. Then they go talk about what systems to put in. Carriers view optical systems much like people view a PC. If I wait one more week, there’s going to be something better out there. That’s why carriers wait until the last minute to buy their systems. IBD: How’s the fiber business? Loose: We brought on over 40% more capacity in fiber last year. This year, we’ll be bringing about 20% more capacity. We expect to add 30% more in 2002. We’re not slacking off our capital spending one nickel. We’re just finishing off a major expansion at our Concord, N.C., plant. We have another new plant going up in Oklahoma City. IBD: How are sales of newer, premium types of fiber? Loose: We talk about fiber volume in kilometers of fiber sold. Last year, the mix of fiber volume has moved up to 30% coming from premium fiber. We expect the premium fiber mix to increase to 35%. We’ve now started to roll out new fibers. Last fall, we introduced fiber for metropolitan networks. It’s our latest fiber, and it began shipping in the fourth quarter. IBD: What new types of fiber are coming out? Loose: What’s next is a system that can send 40 billion bits per second. It’s a very difficult technical problem to make something blink 40 billion times a second. In that instance, there’s a problem with laser light called dispersion. It will require a new type of fiber to control dispersion. You’ll probably be seeing it roll out in the first half of 2002. New fibers are very important. IBD: When do you expect to sell technology from last year’s $750 million IntelliSense Corp. acquisition? Loose: There’s three of us working on that technology: Nortel Networks Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc. and us. Next month at a trade show in Anaheim, Calif., we’ll be showing these products. We put up a factory for these products in Garden Grove, Calif. We’re very optimistic, but it’s a race. Those products should be out by early 2002. IBD: What are your other big initiatives? Loose: We launched a thin-film filter product line and we’re coming after JDS Uniphase Corp. (the No. 1 supplier of thin-film filters, used in advanced optical systems). We have less than a 10% market share in that area, but we’ll get a 30% to 40% market share. We take the filter and ship it to (South) Korea, where we have a joint venture with Samsung. We automated the process of putting filters into packages. IBD: What other types of optical components could benefit from automation? Loose: They could all use automation. At some point a lot of these functions will be done on a chip. We’re spending a lot in this area. We expect work in this area to be coming out over the next five years.