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To: fedhead who wrote (10076)	12/18/2001 8:24:20 PM
From: Bill Harmond	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57684

I was going to ask the same about Silicon Laboratories (SLAB).

To: fedhead who wrote (10076)	12/19/2001 12:44:27 AM
From: damniseedemons	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 57684

Hey Anindo, long time no see. I know ISIL. They have done great in 802.11b, but are very late on 802.11a and their historic .11b customers up aren't waiting around.... ISIL was/is pushing a rival 2nd generation standard to .11a, called 802.11g. .11g is compatible with .11b (and runs in 2.5ghz), but is slower than .11a (which btw runs in 5ghz) and more importantly .11a products are already on the market and .11g hasn't even been ratified as a standard yet (because txn and isil kept arguing) so i wouldn't expect volume shipments of .11g until around next fall. isil is scrambling now to sample 802.11a chipsets, but again, they're late (and bigger more power-hungry chipsets than the competition) so i wouldn't expect volume shipments until maybe next summer. 5ghz is claimed to be better because their is less interference from things like cordless phones, microwaves, and bluetooth. imo, that is mostly BS, but that myth does have some traction. most importantly, some of the isil's best oems, like cisco and intel, are not going with isil for .11a. the white-label .11a chipset leader is aetheros with envara also a player. aetheros chipsets are shipping in intel, proxim, and possibly 3com. intel went with aetheros initially and looks like they will go in-house shortly. cisco bought a .11a chipset maker named radata. lucent/agere also manufacture their own chipsets too. that pretty much covers the big 5 oems. there are also pc-oems shipping 802.11_ mainly in laptops, which are going to be large customers and are still wildcards. supporters of .11a include cisco, intel/xircom, csco (30% access point market share), proxim (haha, the idiots who fought .11b for so long don't want to make the same mistake twice), 3com, lucent/agere. who's left, ericsson on .11g (though, intel and others said they will also ship .11g if the standard gets finalized). also note that the compatibility problem is easily solved by base stations/access points having both .11a and .11b, so they can work with any NIC. this adds a minimal cost to the base station so while not incredibly elegant, it is a workable solution. btw, an embarrassing aside: isil chipsets still don't have windowsXP compatible drivers/firmware. very very lame. oems had been using hacks to workaround, but when msft issued an xp security update this loophole was closed. fyi, agere chipsets are the only ones shipping with winxp-certified drivers. i think wall street generally does not have a good understanding of the isil competitive and marketplace situtation. -sal PS. i'm not long or short ISIL. PPS. what i'm highlighting here is a longer-term strategic issue. i don't think it will have much affect on isil's financial results over the next 4 quarters, which is mainly what the stock will trade against.