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 : SDL, Inc. [Nasdaq: SDLI] -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pat mudge who wrote (3945)	2/13/2001 7:30:35 AM
From: zbyslaw owczarczyk	Respond to of 3951

Optical Bookham sees little inventory buildup www2.marketwatch.com. By Janet Haney, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 1:47 PM ET Feb 12, 2001 SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Bookham Technologies CEO Andrew Rickman said his company is expanding its infrastructure to capture expected market growth, and sees little inventory buildup. The British-headquartered company (BKHM: makes silicon-based integrated optical circuits. Major customers include Nortel, Scientific Atlantic and E-Tek. Rickman told the Robertson Stephens Tech 2001 conference Monday that the optical chip industry is being held back by labor-intensive processes requiring precision assembly and manual labor. He said the company is expanding to capture major growth, and noted Bookham's mini-DIL transmitters and receivers were the only things in its product line affected by inventory buildup. Bookham will release its fourth-quarter results on February 14.

To: pat mudge who wrote (3945)	2/14/2001 7:01:28 PM
From: zbyslaw owczarczyk	Respond to of 3951

IT budget to increase 9.9% (or $550K average) increase for full year 2001. To put that in perspective for network IT spend, 2000 saw a 9.5% increase nwfusion.com ZByslaw

To: pat mudge who wrote (3945)	2/14/2001 8:52:54 PM
From: riposte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3951

Surf ‘n’ Turf Wars February 5,2001 By Joe McGarvey If the world-renowned oceanographer and explorer Jacques Cousteau were still around, he would discover that the ocean bottom is no longer just a habitat for exotic marine life and sunken ships. At a rate expected to greatly accelerate in the near future, network operators are covering the ocean floor with steel-reinforced fiber optic cables that will be transoceanic links to their global terrestrial networks. In a field where the word "global" has been tossed about for years, carriers now realize that submarine networks will be vital to capturing new international business. "In terms of our global vision, it's absolutely critical that we get these networks connected," says Scott Lyons, VP of submarine systems at 360networks. "The submarine facilities will turn our terrestrial network into a global network." Underwater explosion Similar thinking among such other carriers as Cable & Wireless, Level 3 and Global Crossing is fueling significant growth in the submarine sector of the optical transport market. According to Ryan Hankin Kent, the undersea optical transport market will hit about $36.5 billion in 2004 — a huge jump from the roughly $7 billion in sales recorded in 1999. Like Monsieur Cousteau, the 800-pound gorilla in the submarine market is French. Alcatel accounted for 41% of the overall market in 2000. Undersea specialist TyCom was number two with about 35% of sales. Nortel, Lucent and Ciena, the terrestrial big guns, are all wet when it comes to submarine networks — all three failed to make the charts. Alcatel's market dominance is a five-year work in progress, starting with its purchase of Nortel's submarine operations in the mid-1990s. Recently Alcatel has unveiled transoceanic contracts with 360networks and Cable & Wireless, which itself announced last month it was building a New York-to-France connection that could carry as much as 3.6 terabits per second of capacity. It currently is working on submarine contracts that should be worth more than $5 billion over the next several years. The secret of Alcatel's watery success, says Jean Godeluck, COO of Alcatel Submarine Networks, is the company's choice to own virtually every facet of the business. The recent purchase of a fleet of ships that can bury cable in the ocean's floor enables Alcatel to provide customers with a single source for components, cable, and even maintenance and support. "It made good sense to bring in our own capabilities as part of a turnkey system," says Godeluck. The growth in undersea cable projects is primarily the result of the deregulation of the European telecommunications market. Now that trenches are being dug and fiber is being lit up as quickly in Europe as it is in the U.S., the next logical step is to link the Old World to the New. "The Internet is based in the U.S., and the U.S. is a really big island," says Godeluck. "When you are connecting Europe to the U.S., you are obliged to use submarine cables." Pacific overtures While the transatlantic route is presently the most popular by far, analysts say that transpacific lines will grow significantly, as Asia's and Australia's Internet traffic continues to increase exponentially. And as the Internet becomes both a facilitator and instigator of the creation of a truly global economy, submarine networks will enable multinational firms to set up globe-spanning communications channels. "Our customers are no longer interested in just going shore to shore," says Godeluck. "They're interested in going city to city." 360networks' Lyons talks about scaling a virtual private network from a metropolitan focus to worldwide proportions. "Our customers can basically operate as if the world is their wide area network," says Lyons. Also driving the growth of undersea networks are recent gains in transmission performance. Leveraging advances in dense wavelength division multiplexing and other photonic breakthroughs, submarine systems can deliver many times the capacity they could offer only a few years ago, at about the same cost. As they have become more cost-effective, ownership of undersea links has become more attractive. In 1997, maximum capacity for an oceanic link was about 640 gigabits per second. Last year, says Lyons, 360networks ordered an Asian system that can move data at 4.8 terabits per second. The inability to use conventional amplifiers underwater and other constraints, however, mean that submarine networks will continue to lag behind terrestrial systems in terms of channel count and transmission rates. For example, it is likely to be at least a year before submarine systems can transmit at a rate of 40 gigabits a second over a single wavelength. Terrestrial DWDM gear, in contrast, is expected to make the jump from 10 gbps to 40 gbps before the end of the year. Not surprisingly, projections of significant market expansion are spawning the interest of the largest land-locked optical network equipment suppliers. Last year, Nortel announced plans to reenter the submarine market. Just as Alcatel plans to use its undersea strengths to draw carriers to its terrestrial systems, Nortel will use the clout it has established on dry land to make its mark under water. Mike Hynes, president of submarine solutions at Nortel, isn't ready to unveil the company's strategy, but he says that it's set for a major move. "The wheels have been turning for a while now," he says. "Each week we're gaining momentum." theneteconomy.com