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Technology Stocks : SDL, Inc. [Nasdaq: SDLI] -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pat mudge who wrote (13)	11/22/1998 10:16:00 PM
From: Scrapps	Respond to of 3951

Great help Pat, thanx much. Scrapps

To: pat mudge who wrote (13)	11/24/1998 10:03:00 AM
From: w2j2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3951

Pat, I thought I would share with you some thoughts regarding SDLI, since I have followed it for years, fwiw: SDLI has great scientific and engineering talent. Some of the best in the business. The knock on SDLI is that they have had great difficulty morphing from a research company depending on government contracts to a growing manufacturing company. A year ago they had major problems getting their fabs up and running, and lost a lot of business. Then there is focus. It has been apparent to me in the past that they continued to put a lot of effort into lasers for low volume "specialty" products instead of telecom, (where the money is). I blamed this on management. Thus, we had this news: Message 5818276 HOWEVER, then we got this: SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- SDL, Inc. (NASDAQ:SDLI) today announced that the Board of Directors has appointed Gregory P. Dougherty to the newly established position of Chief Operating Officer. Additionally, the company announced that Michael L. Foster has been appointed Chief Financial Officer. Dougherty, who joined the company 18 months ago from Lucent Technologies, has served as Vice President of SDL's Communications Business Unit, one of the company's most successful divisions. Under his leadership, SDL's commercial communication product line experienced revenue growth of over 70 percent year to date. "We are pleased to move Greg into this new position as we believe he will bring an improved level of performance to the whole organization as he did to our communications group," said Donald R. Scifres, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "As we pursue the opportunities in our high-growth markets, particularly optical communications, we needed to ensure that our management team has the breadth of experience to capitalize on those many opportunities. Greg has proven he can provide substantial guidance and insights to our business. His extensive experience in this market and background with Lucent will add more discipline to our objectives and strategic direction." Commenting on his appointment, Dougherty said, "I am very excited to be part of SDL's mission to become the leading provider within the optical communications markets. As evidenced by our recent success at broadening our customer base and applications within this market, we have substantial opportunities for growth." SDL Appoints Foster as CFO Additionally, SDL officially appointed Mike Foster as Chief Financial Officer, a role which he has filled on an interim basis since July 1998. Foster joined SDL three months ago after working 19 years at California Microwave, Inc., a large telecommunications equipment supplier, where he was Vice President and Treasurer. "We have already benefited greatly from Mike's financial planning, strategic approach and management expertise over the last few months," said Scifres. "He brings a combination of strong skills in financial control with experience in acquisitions and divestitures. He has engineered the SDL, Inc. stock repurchase plan that is being announced today. Currently, Mike is also reviewing all of our product lines to ensure they are in line with our overall strategy of profitable growth. Specifically, Mike is working with Greg Dougherty in a focused effort to improve our gross margins in 1999. We anticipate that this analysis and discipline will add to SDL's profitable growth in the years to come." Commenting on his appointment, Foster said, "I am very excited to join SDL at this time, as I believe the company is entering a major new growth phase, driven by the growing demand for our products in the communications market. I look forward to working with the dynamic teams we have assembled at the management level and within each of our divisions." Scifres continued, "We believe that these appointments, combined with the other management promotions within various product groups, are creating the right level of expertise and leadership to significantly strengthen our ability to compete and succeed in the communications, printing, medical and materials processing sectors." *************************************************** I think that management finally figured out that THEY were the problem, and brought in help. The new COO MUST be the reason for the new focus on Telecom products, with surprising gains in profits and margins. I always knew the company had the potential. Now they have the management. Going forward, I think SDLI should do very well. Remember, however that the "gorilla" in the telecom laser space is Uniphase. Anyway, that's my $.02 worth. Good luck to all. wj