Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Ken Richard who wrote (19536)	11/22/1998 10:40:00 AM
From: George Dawson	Respond to of 29386

Ken, Fibre channel is actually a very interesting technology when it comes to circuit versus packet switching. Fibre channel can be both depending on the class of service. Basically class 1 is circuit switched and classes 2 and 3 are packet switched. The details are available in this technical paper from the Ancor web site (see fig. 1 and 2): ancor.com That being said, the term as used in the paragraph you quote is probably not relevant to us because they are referring to equipment on the LAN/WAN side. The limiting factor for using FC on the LAN side (and for clustering) is adapter latency. This is known to fibre channel working groups and I have read some of their notes/goals suggesting that at least some people in the industry want to work on that - especially since FC seems to have advantages over GE. Right now I would guess that working capital is the limiting factor for FC companies who have the expertise to promote a move to the LAN side, but I think it is a logical move if they start to get enough profit from the SAN side. George D.

To: Ken Richard who wrote (19536)	11/25/1998 1:23:00 PM
From: Technocrat	Respond to of 29386

> My question is this: Is the concept of going to "packet switching" > relevant to us ? Is this paragraph positive, negative or neutral to > us, and particularly, if it suggests dramatically increased FC market > in the LAN, et al. ? The author of the blurb you quoted seems to have it backwards. Cisco is moving in the other direction in my opinion. They dominated packet-switching routers and still do to a large extent. However, ideas which started percolating in the mid-1990's definitely got significant attention of Cisco (and the big players like Intel and IBM). I recall startups like Ipsilon attracting huge followings. See ece.ac.ae for example. Ipsilon did not stay independent very long. Also, there was fierce competition for the engineers who were working in these areas. All in all, I think Ancor benefits from this sort of thinking. ANCR may be to SAN with Ipsilon was to LAN. What has my attention is happenings like AOL taking over Netscape while buying a half-a-bill upgrade from Sun. Think there may be some SAN opportunities in there somewhere? I hope so.