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To: Immi who wrote (15369)	12/17/2002 5:19:47 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57684

well I was just thinking that any action wrt customer interest was a good sign for networking equipment. Those businesses have been left for dead and there is a general theme that internet infrastructure currently deployed is all we need for 10 years, worldwide. I know RFPs can be political and don't necessarily result in sales to the vendors participating... but don't they usually result in sales to someone??? thats the way it is in software. Lizzie

To: Immi who wrote (15369)	12/17/2002 5:30:19 PM
From: damniseedemons	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57684

Immi, I was referring to trials as a not-entirely-signficiant predictor of future orders. I didn't say anything about trial revenues, but since you mentioned it.... some trials generate revenue but many do not. There are also a number of trial levels, from a small internal group to a limited release to the telco's customers. I also know first-hand that [small internal] trials can be done with the vendor committing virtually all of the resources and the telco doing very little. "Trial" is a very loaded term and can mean anything, an investor should always look critically at this claim. For an example, look at Comverse Technology (CMVT). Over two years ago, they began boasting "over 50" wireless carriers in trials for their Unified Messaging system. I haven't followed them in a while, but at last count only a couple of those carriers ended up deploying. Comverse and all the wall street analysts projecting big UM revenue based on those >50 trials had to drastically cut their estimates. But again my only point here is that when a company says, "we are filling out a bunch of RFPs" or "we are in trials," investors should not start projecting revenue.