Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : The New QLogic (ANCR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe13579 who wrote (13994)	1/30/1998 1:48:00 AM
From: Kerry Lee	Respond to of 29386

<<You forgot the third option - develop your own switch that's at least as good as the ones out there and take their customers out from underneath them. I believe SUN was hinting at this option in their press release (ie switches to be released later in the year).>> ROFLOL.....................WHY did Sun put out an RFP on a FC switch to prospective vendors? To steal their technology? Do you think Sun operates like MSFT? PS- WHY didn't SUN also develop their own FC HUB in-house ( which is even easier to design than a switch ) instead of going with an outside vendor ( VIXEL )?? PS- WHY didn't Sun develop their own Gigabit Ethernet product line instead of choosing Alteon Networks??

To: Joe13579 who wrote (13994)	1/30/1998 8:18:00 AM
From: George Dawson	Respond to of 29386

There is a fourth option. That is to wait. The longer the wait for large scale FC installations-the more Ancor and Brocade are at a competitive disadvantage. The best information I can get about your average LAN is that it is mostly ethernet/fast ethernet/FDDI. A recent journal article showed that ATM only has a 2% LAN penetration. On the other hand - there are innovations in chip design that allow much higher data transfer rates (16 to 32 GB/s - see ref) than currently available from FC and there is political support for HIPPI 6400 and multiplexing this out over ATM or SONET. Sun is one of the top providers of storage and the top provider of FC storage currently, without FC switches. Despite the optimistic sales figures from Brocade - the actual market demand for FC switches may be soft enough to allow other technologies to compete. Ancor and Brocade seem far enough ahead of the curve to hold off other switch manufacturers, but as long as nobody is currently buying that product - this competitive advantage gets less each day. Ref: Takashima D, Oowaki Y, Watanabe S, Ohuchi K. Noise suppression scheme for gigabit-scale and gigabyte/s data-rate LSI's. IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 33, pp. 260-267, Feb. 1998.