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To: rolatzi who wrote (87205)	2/14/2001 3:59:36 PM
From: The Ox	Respond to of 95453

OT Hi rolatzi, I'm not making ALA my tech pick but I think anyone who is investing in GLW or NT should strongly consider ALA as well. I am saying, for the long term, I'm of the opinion that those 3 stocks are stronger picks than CSCO. Good luck with your choices. I'm not that familiar with XTND but the other 2 are solid companies with great futures. Be careful with your valuation models on those companies!<gg> jmo, Michael

To: rolatzi who wrote (87205)	2/14/2001 5:12:15 PM
From: JungleInvestor	Respond to of 95453

OT: I like NTAP also. Found interesting article below at Smartmoney site. SBLU is still my favorite tech. I'm out of all tech right now and am waiting for another plunge before getting back in (and hopefully a nice rise in the oilpatch while tech plunges). ----------------- Common Sense Back in a Buying Mood CISCO (CSCO), DELL (DELL), APPLIED MATERIALS (AMAT) — the list of technology companies failing to meet expectations grows longer each week. One of the last holdouts, Cisco now seems to have been too optimistic for too long. When the reckoning came last week, the market reaction was harsh. It wasn't that Cisco's earnings were so bad — in fact, they were still up by 50% — but the sense that if even a Cisco could falter, then no one was immune. It was a psychological setback as much as a financial one. If you've been reading these columns, you know that I view such periods of widespread gloom as opportunities. Just two weeks ago, I was selling into what looked like nearly a 25% rally from the Nasdaq low in December. By the end of the week, my own portfolio had slipped slightly into negative territory. Since my cash levels have increased, I'm easing into a buying mood again, especially since one of my favorite sectors — data storage — has been pummeled. Anyone who orders a product on the Internet and sees their billing address spring up instantly can easily imagine the growing demand for data storage and retrieval. Still, as dot-com ventures fail left and right, it's obvious that demand for this sort of thing doesn't look as huge as it did a few months ago. These stocks should be off their highs, and they are. More recently, customers have been slowing or canceling orders, the proximate cause for Monday's sell-off in the jittery sector. Analysts are now falling over themselves reducing projections. But so far as I know, no one seriously disputes that storage will continue to be one of the most rapidly growing sectors in technology, with products that could someday swallow the computer itself. The obvious company to own in this area is EMC (EMC), which has been one of the best performers on the New York Stock Exchange during the past few years. At a recent price of $54, it's now off 48% from its 52-week high. EMC has lately been rising and (mostly) falling based on perceptions of its rivalry with upstart Network Appliance (NTAP). At a recent price of $39, Network Appliance, too, is far off its high of $152.75. EMC and Network Appliance are the subject of a recent SmartMoney.com article, "Let Sleeping Giants Lie," which will tell you all you need to know about Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS). But I can make this simple for you. Why gamble on who will eventually "win" this race? Did IBM (IBM) turn out to be the only successful computer company? At these prices, you can afford to own both companies. In December, EMC unveiled a new product that merges NAS and SAN technologies into a single component. Last week, Network Appliance reported earnings that beat estimates and described very rosy prospects for the coming year. Monday, it unveiled a new line of products and announced improved connectivity to networks using a high-end fiber channel protocol. In other words, competition is alive and well in data storage. In a growing market, this kind of innovation benefits customers, increases demand, and ultimately will reward both companies and their shareholders. So while the analysts fret and the companies' stocks fall, I intend to build my positions.