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

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 7:30:00 PM
From: Craig Stevenson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29386

According to one of my sources, CNBC's "Taking Stock" segment today had a Bear Stearns asset manager taking calls. A lady called in to ask about Adaptec, and he responded that they dominated the SCSI market, but that the concern was that there was a new technology called FIBRE CHANNEL that would eventually replace SCSI and they were unlikely to have the same market share in FC. Did anybody see this interview, and is there anything to add? Craig

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 7:48:00 PM
From: Roger Arquilla	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

George, You stated, "SAN OEM revenues are not expected until 1999-with announcements in the third or fourth quarter." Are you implying 3rd and 4th quarters of 98 or 99? Maybe I am reading more into than what you wrote, but I get the impression that Ken is very disappointed with where things are at this stage of the game. Did he give you the impression that coming over to Ancor has fallen short of his financial expectations? It sounds like he was expecting the company to be a lot further along at this time than they are. If there is any truth to that, do you, like Craig S., feel the problem lies with the overall slower ramp up for FC products, or a perhaps a primary marketing problem with Ancor? I also got the impression from what you said that loosing SUN was more than a minor set back to the company. It appears that what others had to say was true. Nothing bad, nothing good. Business as usual. Thank you for your report. Roger

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 8:08:00 PM
From: Craig Stevenson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

George, Thanks for the shareholder's meeting report. 1. Although it is disappointing to hear that SAN OEM revenues will not appear until 1999, that does not come as a big surprise to me. I have speculated that things were getting pushed out, even before the Sun announcement. (The lack of any OEM announcements from Brocade supports this view.) I forgot to post this link when I first saw it, but the demo diagram from Interop shows something quite interesting: ancor.com Notice the MKII in the Sun booth? Did anyone there actually see this switch, and did Sun also have a SilkWorm? 5. The University of Illinois information is interesting, in more ways than one. I'll elaborate after some further research. 7. I think that Ancor being a midwestern company both helps and hurts them. It hurts them in the sense that they are not geographically close to many of their potential customers, but they are helped by the fact that most companies in this area have a reputation for being honest. 10. I also asked about attrition during my visit. I find it amazing that there are virtually no defections. Even in Minnesota, people move around. Craig

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 9:08:00 PM
From: KJ. Moy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

George, Thank you for a comprehensive report. Much appreciated. Looks like the data backup business is doing well. KJ

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 9:40:00 PM
From: ronald rollins	Respond to of 29386

Some additional scraps from the meeting: -Ken said they might need to raise additional monies this year if they got a big OEM deal as they would need to get inventory or something loaded up in prep for the OEM , otherwise as George said, they would not need money this year. -Carla commented on the size of the switch business next year by saying that she had heard estimates of from 100mill to 1bill and she thought it was inbetween. -ancor meet with Hucom last week and Hucom did not think that the asian financial problems were affecting fc sales -gross margins in 1997 were greatly impacted by the special charges, and that they were no current charges pending. -the lawyers have argued the motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed against the company,won't hear from the judge for awhile -our competitor has many more LSI chips than we do -LAN is using class 1 but storage is not now part two later ron r

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 9:48:00 PM
From: srvhap	Respond to of 29386

George- Thank you very much for taking the tine to relay all the information. Much appreciated. Tom

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 11:11:00 PM
From: Greg Hull	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29386

George, I think you covered the meeting very well. I'll just add a couple asides to your synopsis: 1. Ken H.'s message was the same as we have heard in the past - with some slight modifications. SAN OEM revenues are not expected until 1999 - with announcements in the third or fourth quarter. Carla Kennedy has believed since she started that significant revenues would not be seen until 1999. Other management now agrees with her. It takes time for companies who wish to adopt FC to find out what they don't know. This is the year most of them are finding out. Switch customers (SANs), large and small, will announce their switch vendors later this year. Volume shipments (by definition SAN customers, apparently) will not begin until next year. He feels the stock price is low relative to the potential market, but understands that it is viewed as a "story stock" that will not move unless there is news. Ken has been told by analysts that there are many buyers waiting on the sidelines until the story is told (PR). While I have been afraid to wait on the sidelines for fear of missing the train, I'm beginning to think that it may be wiser to try to catch the shooting knife than to spend any more time (money) in the terminal (there's no metaphor like a mixed metaphor). More than one person on this board has said in the last 1-2 years that they will wait until the stock takes off before buying in. In retrospect, I can't fault that strategy. 3. MK.II switches have been released for SAN applications only, i.e. not for LAN applications. Since (almost) all revenue to date is LAN, MKII will not make a contribution to the top line until 1999. Other issues: All Ancor people stressed the importance of their ASIC. Their 16 port switch has 6 chips. Brocade's current switch design does not allow the same degree of integration as Ancor's. The biggest difference is the onboard memory. I think I heard that a 1 chip solution is possible for an 8 port switch. Ancor filed its motion to dismiss the shareholder lawsuit on 3/16/98. They presented their arguments to the judge two weeks ago, and expect to here of his ruling in 90-120 days. Ancor does not believe that they lost out being SUN's SAN switch preferred supplier on technical grounds, that is, the MK.II is not inferior to the Silkworm in Sun's eyes. However, superior technical performance may not be material. Exceeding requirements does not always earn extra credit. MSL in Arden Hills, MN is building the circuit boards for Gigworks and Silkworm. The official shareholder's meeting ran 15 minutes. Q&A lasted another 50 minutes. I was disappointed that no hardware was on display, unlike last year. I got the impression that this was an oversight rather than intentional. Many others have commented on the bullish outlook that Ancor employees display. It was apparent that management expects to have a much better story to tell at next year's meeting. We'll be able to tell all those Johnny-come-lately's that we owned ANCR when ANCR wasn't cool. Greg

To: George Dawson who wrote (16309)	5/20/1998 11:12:00 PM
From: J Fieb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

Craig S. and George D., Thanks for the near real- time reports of on-site visits to ANCR. I was nervous and might have folded, instead I bought. Gilder says that networks of PCs are polynomials where the real power is a mathematical equation that is n to the n-1 power. For those of you who haven't read Gild. yet, that means that the more of you who make some contribution to this thread the better off we will all be. Thanks. Here is an n-1(or more) response to your contribution. He believes Ancor's ASIC team is "second to none" and he qualified this by saying he has extensive experience in the industry with ASIC teams. He also said they are loyal and that when California calls - they hang up. Upside did a story about the critical nature if intellectual capital and how to put a price tag on it. The article said that in the valley there are no hostile takeovers because if the IC doesn't like it they just get up and walk and there isn't anything left but an empty shell.. "When the CA vultures call ANCR just hangs up! ANCR's IC sounds committed to see this through to fruitition. You can bet the calls would have $$$ and a chance for immediate gratification. ANCR do everything you can to nurture that precious resource. 5. Ancor switches now backup one of the largest cluster of NT servers in the country at the University of Illinois. Do the switches only do the backup and not the clustering, or do they do both? , ie is this clustering FC, backup FC or both. On SI home page there is a nice editorial about how NT will be making life difficult for SUNW pretty soon. Does NT want FC to help them in their quest for dominance?