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To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (35700)	12/28/2001 1:30:50 PM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67979

09:59 ET Network Appliance (NTAP) 22.47 : This maker of storage appliances is getting a boost this morning thanks to a report from Needham that the company is on track to meet or beat its estimates of $200 mln in sales and EPS of $0.02. The firm also expects NTAP to maintain its 58% gross margin achieved last quarter. This is important as it shows the company has maintained some pricing power unlike other in the IT hardware space....The stock has been very strong since it traded as low as $6 in late September. Unlike EMC, NetApp has been seeing some firming in its end markets. Its fundamentals are improving, partly as a result of redeployment of sales efforts and from a rich new product pipeline. In fact, a number of new products have already been announced and the pipeline for next year looks even better. NetApp's new product pipeline includes an entry level F810 enterprise filer, a fully integrated remote office F87 filer and a near-line "fat disk" product called NearStore which is scalable to 96TB. The NearStore product line addresses the expanding market need for affordable networked storage solutions and further distances NetApp from the competition. Its F87 and F810 products enhance its entry-level offerings for remote offices and data centers...Briefing.com's main concern with the stock is valuation as it trades at a forward p/e of 100+. Granted, this is skewed by the estimate being only $0.20, but the stock looks expensive here as it has rebounded 260% off its lows. Over the past year, there has been concerns over where network-attached storage (NAS) fits in the overall storage hardware market. However, NTAP is clearly making a niche for itself and is aggressively rolling out new products next year. Many storage stocks have been running the last couple of months. We recommend waiting for a pullback in NTAP before buying, but it's a solid way to play the storage market as the quarter appears to be tracking well. -- Robert J. Reid, Briefing.com