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

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (10194)	3/8/2001 11:09:11 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Respond to of 14638

Looks like Xros has a tough competitor in OMM From lightreading Still shipping! Our argument for putting OMM on the last iteration of the Top Ten list – shipping product and a wide customer base – has become even more relevant in an environment in which financing is tight, IPOs are impossible, and good, old-fashioned, fundamental business sense has become the leading criterion. (Fuggedabout “spending money to make it.” Try “making money to spend it” instead) Hence, OMM’s rise from no. 10 to no. 1: The customer is king. And cash counts. A whole slew of vendors are developing all-optical switches around MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) technology, but OMM Inc. stands out from the crowd in a number of respects. First and foremost, it’s shipping commercial products to a number of players. In OMM’s case, this means switching subsystems — building blocks that will form the core of all-optical switches made by systems vendors like Alcatel SA (NYSE: ALA: Paris: CGEP:PA), Siemens AG (Frankfurt: SIE - message board), and Sycamore Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: SCMR - message board). Corvis Corp. (Nasdaq: CORV - message board) and optical switch newcomer Ilotron Ltd. are also OMM customers (see Iolon ). Why are so many companies picking the OMM product? “Because they’re the best,” says Scott White, vice president of business development at Ilotron, another all-optical switch maker. ‘Nuff said. The fact that OMM is now into serious production speaks volumes. It means that it’s not only conquered the technical challenges of making arrays of tiny tilting mirrors, but it’s also solved packaging issues and built an automated manufacturing process. That’s a big deal in anything to do with semiconductors (see Packaging the Optical Future ). But shipping commercial products in this field is particularly significant, because the use of MEMS is unproven in telecom equipment. Alcatel, Siemens, and Sycamore clearly think OMM is out in front in this respect. They’ve invested in the company, and they’re using its subsystems to develop their own all-optical switches. Another investor is Milton Chang, who’s definitely no dope. Further, recent developments suggest that the company is serious in its pursuit of developing cutting-edge 3D products (see Agere's 3D MEMS Switch 'Not First' ). The first 3D subsystem startup — Xros — get snapped up for a whopping $3.25 billion by Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE/Toronto: NT - message board) around this time last year (see Nortel Buys A Monster Cross-Connect ). OMM has filed for an IPO, so we should soon know whether it can outdo Xros — not in the size of its switch, maybe, but at least in its market value. For more on OMM, see: OMM Products in Next Gen. Internet , OMM Sets IPO , and Siemens Exec Joins OMM Team . To learn more about the Light Reading Top Ten Private Companies list, click here. lightreading.com