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To: Mark Fowler who wrote (126364)	6/11/2001 4:24:14 PM
From: craig crawford	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

brcd is one of my first choices for a short!

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (126364)	6/11/2001 4:41:39 PM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

I'd like to add to Seattle based ADIC when this market improves, my average cost is 12. June 10 2001 Strong growth over the past few years is just the beginning. "We feel we have to have sales in the billions to be a player in the industry," says Peter van Oppen, ADIC chairman and chief executive. No idle forecast, the company expects to hit that billion-dollar mark within the next few years. Sales in the first six months of the current fiscal year already are at $184.8 million compared with $128.8 million in the same period a year earlier. The company expects to have sales of $400 million in the current fiscal year. ADIC was formed in 1983 to market a mini-computer data-backup drive. Interpoint, a specialized manufacturing company, bought the company in 1994 and spun it off on its own in 1996. No fancy initial public offering. No venture-capital rounds of funding. Just a solid company with a business model that focused on customer satisfaction and finding solutions to data-storage problems. Today its balance sheet shows no debt and cash of about $200 million. ADIC is in a growing business. The amount of data is doubling every year, and by one estimate more data will be created in the next two years than in all of recorded history. "Data is getting more valuable," said company president Charles Stonecipher. "Companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon.com are using data on their customers to run their business." Add to that data ranging from medical X-rays to family photographs and the growing size of the industry is apparent. ADIC equipment helps companies deal with large blocks of data. Its machines range in size from small boxes capable of handling a week's dealings at a retail operation to school-bus-sized data-storage units handling gigabytes of information for insurance companies. Van Oppen and Stonecipher have a different business model than most technology companies. Both came from broad backgrounds in sales and marketing rather than engineering and technology. The business model they put together means the company focuses on solving problems for clients, rather than being tied to a device or technology. About 40 percent of its business is as an original equipment manufacturer for well-known brands such as IBM and Dell, with the remainder under its own branded product line. While it still provides the hardware of data storage, it is increasingly moving up the value-added curve in the industry, providing its own software solutions that help companies manage the data. "As long as people get up in the morning and turn on their server, data gets generated and you want to store it," Stonecipher said. ADIC has added 300 workers this year and now has more than 1,000 workers on the payroll. Besides its corporate headquarters, the company has a manufacturing facility nearby, plus operations in Denver and in Paris. Sales in Europe are a key part of the business, with Asia still in the development phase. Earlier this year it acquired Ithaca, N.Y.-based Pathlight Technology for about $265 million in stock. Pathlight's technology specializes in data management, the potentially fastest-growing sector of the network industry. Pathlight was a privately held, profitable company with $20 million in sales last year.