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Technology Stocks : FORE Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JakeStraw who wrote (10755)	3/5/1999 11:43:00 PM
From: General Crude	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12559

Lots of call volume today. Looking good. Doug

To: JakeStraw who wrote (10755)	3/6/1999 4:40:00 PM
From: jach	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12559

Questions and Answers WHY EURISTIX The acquisition of Euristix significantly strengthens FORE Systems' core product offering for the rapidly growing service provider market, a market in which FORE's switching solutions are already in abundance at the core of some of today's largest Internet Service Provider and carrier networks. WHAT EURISTIX BRINGS TO FORE Euristix will complement FORE further through its long standing project development capability that has produced sophisticated telecommunications software in the areas of intelligent networking, wireless roaming, signaling interworking applications (SS7, QSIG), and Voice over IP (H.323). As FORE expands out its product offering from the network core, the Euristix acquisition will provide the unique expertise necessary to deliver innovative software solutions for Voice over IP (VoIP), wireless roaming and virtual private networking (VPN) applications. The first new product from this acquisition will be a comprehensive network management solution for service provider customers, combining the best of FORE's ForeViewâ network management software and EMSX. This product is expected to ship in 3Q, CY99. With the introduction of these new products and capabilities, FORE is well positioned to build on its rapidly growing success with large service providers. ABOUT EURISTIX Founded in 1990, Euristix is an industry-leading developer of advanced telecommunications software technology and solutions. Euristix's experienced engineering staff has developed an array of strategic product applications for many major multinational telecommunications equipment manufacturers. Euristix offers a modern network element management and service provisioning platform to meet the specific needs of Internet and carrier-based network service providers. The company has demonstrated its leadership position in the telecommunications software industry with its award-winning EMSX element management system. WHERE IS FORE POSITIONED IN THE SERVICE PROVIDER MARKET TODAY? FORE Systems, Inc. addresses today two major market segments within the overall service provider market. First, FORE is emerging as a leading Internet backbone equipment supplier for large Internet Service Providers and emerging alternative carriers such as UUNET, Level-3, and Cable &Wireless. These companies use FORE's award winning switching platforms to build out their core IP backbones. Within the ISP market segment, FORE has captured approximately 20% market share. This is primarily due to sales of the Forerunner ASX-1000 and ASX-4000 backbone switching platforms. The ASX-4000 is FORE's flagship product platform for this segment moving forward as indicated by the recent customer wins announced for this product. With recent announcements about the integration of carrier-class redundancy and MPLS into this platform, the ASX-4000 is poised for even more dramatic growth within this segment. Second, FORE has achieved a dominant position in the cable based service provider market. The largest cable providers in North America (i.e. TCI, Time-Warner, Cox,) have all selected FORE Systems, Inc. to provide a multi-service network infrastructure. These top providers make up approximately 80% of this market segment. And last, FORE has recently shown record growth in revenues for solutions sold to service providers, with more than a 150% sequential quarterly increase in the December quarter (FQ399). HOW WILL THE EURISTIX ACQUISITION HELP FORE BUILD UPON ITS SUCCESS IN THESE MARKET SEGMENTS? The acquisition of Euristix allows FORE to compete much more aggressively in the overall SP/WAN switching market with the ASX family of Internet core switches. This market is estimated by market researchers to be $4.2 billion worldwide in 1999 and growing to $7.5 billion in 2002. FORE's addressable portion of this market with the current ATM product line is $2.7 billion in 1999 and $5.6 billion in 2002 respectively. Prior to this acquisition FORE competed in this market based on the strength of its high capacity hardware and robust software. However, relative to the competition, FORE's network management solution was less complete. Now with the acquisition of Euristix and its next generation service provider management platform (RACEMAN/EMSX), FORE is in a much stronger position to win a great share of deals in this rapidly growing market for FY'00. WHAT ARE FORE'S PLANS TO INCREASE ITS ADDRESSABLE MARKET IN THE SERVICE PROVIDER SPACE? The effects of deregulation and the rapid growth of the Internet are causing a realignment and redefinition of the traditional service provider and public carrier markets. The resulting buildout of what is becoming known as the New Public Network represents a tremendous opportunity for FORE to significantly increase its overall addressable market in the service provider space. This network will involve the spending of tens of billions to deliver new converged voice, video, and data infrastructures based predominantly on IP and ATM technologies (plus derivatives e.g. MPLS). Subsequent evolution of this network will involved potentially hundreds of billions of dollars spent over many years on replacing legacy carrier equipment (e.g. Class 4/5 switches, TDM cross connects and SONET multiplexers) as the older carrier networks and services are transitioned to the new public network infrastructure.