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

To: Craig Stevenson who wrote (15549)	4/5/1998 9:35:00 PM
From: Roger Arquilla	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

Craig, Unfortunately, your thorough analysis is painfully reasonable. If they loose the next big fish, things will look very dismal. Roger

To: Craig Stevenson who wrote (15549)	4/5/1998 11:24:00 PM
From: George Dawson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

"In my case at least, there have been several fundamental changes that have made me MUCH more cautious." Craig, Are you working for Kinnard or what? Seriously, I couldn't agree with you more on the shipping/implementation schedule issue. Now that there is some degree of standardization any delay will hurt Ancor the most. Their current revenue sources are unclear. Even if they get an OEM and ramp up production - those revenues with not be immediate. I think that management did say not to expect major announcements until the second half of 1998 and they are on that schedule. On the issue of technical superiority - that is still a question for me. The datacom article cleared up a few things, but the Silkworm class 2/3 versus the MKII class 2/3 may be a wash. We have all heard the EDS rumor of no single source OEM. As I was biking today - I thought of the potential benefits. If it is true, EDS may help clarify which applications benefit from class 1 and assist others in making that decision. The other question - assuming that the MKII and Silkworm are the only switches being given serious consideration is - why would there be a choice? If the decision is on technical merit and price - does this mean somebody has to accept lower than expected margins on the bid? If EDS really wants class 1, what can you do to stay competitive except bidding a lower price? The only other explanation would be some institutional bias for no single supplier. There also seems to be a concerted effort, on the part of several Ancor detractors to spread misleading information about their products. I won't bore everyone by reviewing all of this information again. Their motivation is clear. I am already on record in previous posts with my opinion on these tactics. I don't buy the argument that the tech community is any more rational than other communities and that OEM decisions will not be highly biased by factors that we can only guess at. I am less sure than you are that Ancor will succeed. I know that for me it makes sense to take the chance that they will - rather than wait to buy in after an OEM. At that time it will be too late. In my opinion there will be limited upside potential. I also see very limited upside potential for other FC IPOs - especially if they are issued after significant OEM deals are signed. All in my opinion. George D.

To: Craig Stevenson who wrote (15549)	4/6/1998 12:58:00 AM
From: janski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

Thanks Craig. I see your point but these concerns were true few months back, are now, and always will be in the world of bleeding edge high tech. What bothers me is what are we doing now while waiting for that big score. In the last report Ancor says they shipped switches to over 80 customers now. That's not a bad number. Why is there no follow up? Getting your foot in the door with a brand new product being a little nobody company is the hardest thing to do and they don't seem to be able to capitalize on having being able to do that. I can't figure that one out. Are they going to be able to close a deal with the likes of IBM's of this world if their sales folks can't sell anything? They did sell nothing. Just about all of last year revenues came from Hucom. Sure, without a major OEM or two Ancor will not make it big but generating some revenues to fund their existence would certainly make me more hopefull that they will eventually close that bid deal too.

To: Craig Stevenson who wrote (15549)	4/8/1998 8:42:00 AM
From: Neil S	Respond to of 29386

Craig, Delay Happens <g>: <<Although related to Sun, another reason I'm more cautious is based on the apparent fact that Sun was willing to wait for Brocade (or whoever) to implement Arbitrated Loop. That seems to indicate that their shipping schedules have slipped somewhat.>> Interesting article re GE delays and market impact: techweb.com Gbit Ethernet's real problems <<We can all snicker about how Andy Bechtolsheim got Cisco to pay way too much for the unproven Granite, but there's no method to Cisco's madness. The Gigabit Ethernet market has plenty of problems in its own right.>> <<Most of the problems slowing market growth were completely foreseen a year ago and utterly predictable. The moves by Gigabit Ethernet (GE) startups in the last few weeks seem to be choreographed in advance, following in part a trajectory laid out by the promises of ATM in the LAN.>> <<All this will help GE grow while cutting margins and making it tough to compete. But real corporate networks will be hybrids of GE, ATM, Fibre Channel and legacy technologies. Any bandwidth feature that requires new hardware costs real money that is bound to make a network manager postpone a purchase decision.>> Neil