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Technology Stocks : Ultratech Stepper -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andrew Vance who wrote (2635)	8/12/1998 9:15:00 AM
From: Carl Mays	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3696

Andrew, I still do not understand the reasoning behind the ISI acquisition either. The XLS system is simply not competitive in the market. When ISI split from General Signal in 1993, the XLS technology was not part of the deal. GS tried to sell the XLS separately but found no buyers and eventually gave it to ISI for a small royalty payment. It retrospect, if UTEK acquired the XLS technology in the 1993 from GS they would have avoided the ISI acquisition and they would have a product developed by now. I understand that UTEK's attempt to sell of the ISI trac business is not going well and that they are planning to shut down that product line by the end of this month.

To: Andrew Vance who wrote (2635)	8/12/1998 12:07:00 PM
From: Investor2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3696

What does "facilitized" mean? Thanks, I2

To: Andrew Vance who wrote (2635)	8/13/1998 10:56:00 AM
From: David Aegis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3696

Andrew, what bad news do you see coming down the pike? Art said the disk drive business had bottomed out. This claim is supported by a recent blurb in Investor's Business Daily (August 7, 1998, pA2): <<Disk Drive Supply Flow Is Getting Much Tighter SoundView Financial Group cites CHS Electronics reports that some products are stuck in distribution. There's also word of shortages of disk drives of three and four gigabytes. SoundView sees these boosting prices for disk drives by Seagate, Quantum and other makers.>> And didn't Art pick up ISI for pocket change? Art also used to work for GCA. He says he is very familiar with the ISI machines, and that they will work well for disk drive applications. A number of modifications have been completed or are currently in the works to resolve the shortcomings identified by Carl Mays. Meanwhile, any proceeds from the sale of ISI's track and prober businesses would be gravy. Art said on the EPS conference call that their were several parties interested in these businesses. Pehaps I am placing too much reliance on information provided by sources within Ultratech. But I have always found Art to tell it like he sees it, and I haven't seen much that controverts the predictions he made on the EPS conference call. --David

To: Andrew Vance who wrote (2635)	8/13/1998 10:40:00 PM
From: Demosthenes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3696

Okay, AV, what bad news re Ultrabeam are you referring to? IR at UTEK has not returned my call re some other matters for a few days now. What can you tell us? Rgds, D