Robertson Stephens Tech '99 Coverage, Part II
                                      In last week's article, I promised to catch up with more of the sights
                                      and sounds of Tech '99, the Robertson Stephens technology
                                      stock-fest. Here are a few notes; more to come next time.

                                      Bandwidth, baby: We've talked a lot about the soaring stocks of
                                      consumer Internet service providers MindSpring Enterprises (MSPG),
                                      EarthLink Network (ELNK) and America Online (AOL), but there are a
                                      couple of other ideas that have not yet hit the mainstream. Near the
                                      top of anyone's Web value list today should be Verio (VRIO), which
                                      impressed investors at the conference with its strategy of becoming
                                      the leading ISP for the nation's millions of small- to medium-sized
                                      businesses that don't have in-house IT staffs to focus on Internet
                                      working issues. 

                                      A Verio executive noted that despite strong competition from MCI
                                      WorldCom (WCOM), the Baby Bells and the likes of MindSpring, the
                                      nation's tiny independent ISPs still have 50% of the business market.
                                      The reason: Small businesses like the idea of being able to call a
                                      local salesman or technician for help. Verio is buying up a lot of those
                                      small ISPs around the world and keeping their local sales forces in
                                      place. The exec said only 15% of small U.S. businesses today are on
                                      the Net, but ultimately you can bet they will all be hooked up and
                                      require hosting services. He called it a $100 billion market, and no
                                      one around me flinched.

                                      Verio also has a strong OEM business. Four of the six top regional
                                      Bell operating companies use the company for Web hosting, which
                                      means that even when a small business thinks it's signing up with a
                                      Bell company to host its online widget catalog, it has actually become
                                      a Verio customer. (The names of the OEM clients are confidential).
                                      And in addition to providing connectivity, Verio is ramping up a
                                      program that will let small businesses rent time on super-expensive
                                      enterprise resource planning software from companies like
                                      PeopleSoft (PSFT). 

                                      The company recently completed a $400 million bond offering that
                                      spooked investors, and it has not wrung expenses out of its 60-plus
                                      acquisitions as quickly as many expected. Last quarter's results were
                                      moderately disappointing, so the stock is not much above the level at
                                      which it became public last May. With the current price rising 10% this
                                      week to $31.50 after positive comments from CIBC Oppenheimer, it
                                      could see further strong appreciation if it stays on track -- either on its
                                      own or as "monster meat," the current slang for strong niche
                                      companies that could be acquired by Web industry giants. Already, a
                                      unit of MCI WorldCom owns 17% of the firm. (Its limited operating
                                      history, however, makes it, like most companies in the space, very
                                      high risk.)

                                      BIG Bandwidth, baby: A safer play in the same arena is fast-growing
                                      Exodus Communications (EXDS). This Web-hosting outfit used to be
                                      something of a secret, but the word is out now: It's considered the
                                      monster stock in the group of companies that seek to take advantage
                                      of the Internet outsourcing trend among large businesses. 

                                      Let's say you're Yahoo! (YHOO) and want to concentrate on being a
                                      giant Web media company. You'd probably want someone else to
                                      manage, maintain and keep secure the vast array of servers and
                                      networking equipment that make it possible for consumers to hit your
                                      sites 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Enter Exodus, which
                                      provides this service for many of the largest names on the Net,
                                      including Yahoo!, Microsoft (MSFT), GeoCities (GCTY) and Lycos
                                      (LCOS). Trailing 12-month sales are smaller than Verio, $52 million
                                      to $120 million, but growth is estimated to be much faster -- now
                                      doubling or tripling each quarter -- and the company has become a
                                      darling among institutional investors. The stock has a 52-week range
                                      of $15 to $115 and now rests around $80.

                                      Robertson Stephens senior analyst Rick Juarez notes that average
                                      revenue per account at Exodus has jumped from $47,000 to
                                      $133,000 in the past year, and bandwidth usage has raced from one
                                      gigabit per second to an incredible 3 gigabits per second.

                                      "Its clients come on board and immediately start to consume more
                                      and more bandwidth," says Juarez. He compares the Web host to a
                                      shopping mall, where one day you might see the parking lot half full,
                                      and a week later it's packed, and the following week cars are lined up
                                      waiting to get in: "Data traffic passing through this company is
                                      enormous -- it's a great metric for the Internet overall."

                                      Juarez adds that Exodus is virtually alone in the field, and investor
                                      worries that large telephone companies will eventually become tough
                                      competitors are "unwarranted" because they've largely been divesting
                                      themselves of data centers, not adding them.