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Technology Stocks : Etec Systems moving up -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jeffbas who wrote (1046)	7/20/1998 5:19:00 PM
From: sage	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1279

Jeffrey: I believe the real reason for Etec's lethargic sales in the prior years was largely due to the fact that the technology embodied within most mask making equipment was far ahead of the industry's requirements. Therefore, the systems in place had an unusually long service life. This is no longer true (unless the Asian crisis throws us back to horse and buggy days) due to the rapid rate of technical evolution. I believe your concern for overnight technical obsolescence is valid for almost any small cap high technology company. However, Etec still has a formidable lead over UTEK, JEOL, Hitachi thanks to many years and many tens of millions of governmtent R&D dollars. The key problems for Etec are 1) to maintain that lead beyond a 3-5 year horizon and 2) developing another product family to protect against an overnight surprise. Problem 1 is problematic since it also requires the IC industry to continue to evolve at a fast rate and Problem 2 requires skilled technical management to innovate into new product areas, a skill that has yet to be demonstrated by current management. Sage