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Technology Stocks : Aware, Inc. - Hot or cold IPO? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (4677)	11/13/1998 9:01:00 AM
From: Jim	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9236

I am interested in the particular units that would be in a consumers home. I looking at the Aware homepages, they are selling an ADSL modem, but there is no sign of a splitterless DSL-lite unit? Are they manufactured yet? By whom?

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (4677)	11/13/1998 11:10:00 AM
From: SteveG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9236

<..I'd like to find out how much awre is getting in royalties...> For G.lite, AWRE has some IPR, but so do 32 other companies - and patents are still being figured out.. Since G.lite is heavily borrowed from T1.413 (except for Amati's "bit swapping", which is just an "option" to G.lite 922.2), and many already have the essential splitterless and fast retrain G.lite functionality, most will likely be able to achieve the G.lite functionality without requiring patent licensing. Further, the tone seems more congenial regarding any potential cross-licensing as no one seems to want a repeat of the contentious T1.413 - with Amati's largely failed attempt to gouge. So Aware's business seems primarily to be selling technology licensing versus patent licensing. Aware sells know-how and time to market to cos like LU, Siemens, 3COM etc. (most telecom cos have been caught off guard - for instance, just a year ago LU was betting on CAP RADSL). Aware is also licensing ASIC cores (to purportedly ADI's dismay). They make decent money primarily if G.lite makes it big - which seems to be the case. Good margins but a limited market. They make ~$1/port plus an initial licensing fee, with the value of the transfer diminishing over time - which will make it hard to depend on it for future growth. It's been suggested that this is perhaps what the core-licensing is about. But with other's capable of stealing Aware's business, no propietary technology is involved, so no real chance to gouge. (And Aware doesn't really sell equipment to large telecom vendors, other than some small volume point-point modem solutions.) Johnson's 30% market estimates IMO is pretty ambitious, but well presented. Anyone wanting a pdf copy of the report, email me with "aware" in subject. I'll send a single BCC copy out this evening or tomorrow. BTW, I DO see PAIR getting scooped - and would guess TLAB. The deal wouldn't fly without the engineering talent happily onboard, so juicy options would need be part of deal to keep employees. Not sure how much price premium would be justified... mass xDSL deployment seems still a long hard ways off.. but initial stirring noises ARE now being made. [BTW, God Bless Bear Stearns, Volpe and the maniac public]