Archive for February, 2007
Why JDSU Bought Picolight
JDSU (JDSU) announced that they are acquiring Picolight, a maker of VCSEL based optical transceivers. This is yet another example of healthy consolidation in the optical components business, which ultimately will lead to a better business environment for all- except for the customers like Cisco that exploit the oversupply situation. And Cisco is the likely reason JDSU bought Picolight in the first place.
BT’s 21CN - Reversing a Victorian Tradition
England is near the top of the list of countries I don’t like to visit. My wife likes watching the tedious Victorian England dramas of BBC “Masterpiece Theatre”. I last about 10 minutes until their images force memories of stuffy rooms, bad heating, weird ergonomics and truly god-awful food to resurface.
There is one exception to my stereotype. British Telecom’s (BT) 21st Century (21CN) initiative. No Victorian Bric-a-Brac here.
Cortina Acquires Immenstar
Cortina has agreed to acquire Immenstar. I’ve written about both companies extensively (See here and here).
This acquisition is surprising. Cortina previously focused more on the core of the network and has either built or acquired products designed to enable the next generation of WAN equipment for carrier applications. Immenstar is tightly focused on fiber to the home chipsets, a much more access oriented application. I suspect that Cortina is looking to couple it’s carrier class ethernet solutions with Immenstar’s high density OLT solution. Still, it is not a pretty fit.
Infinera files S-1
Infinera filed an S-1 today, the link is here.
First impressions? I’m not surprised that the company isn’t generating an operating profit. But I am a bit shocked that their cost of goods sold is higher than their revenue. I need to spend more than 5 minutes looking at the S-1 but this one fact jumped out immediately.
Battery Man
I sat down with Alex Benik of Battery Ventures Tuesday morning to swap perspectives on the Communication components business, semiconductors in particular.
California Dreaming
I’m off to (hopefully) sunny Santa Barbara for a long weekend of cycling and Tour of California spectating. I found during my trip last year that it is a great way to beat the winter cycling blues here in Boston and kick start the new season. Best of all, this time I’ve managed to convince three friends to join me. I can be reached by email.
All Quiet on the Blogging Front
I sincerely apologize for the lack of posting in the last two weeks. It’s not that there hasn’t been interesting stuff to talk about (Opnext IPO, Comcast, 3G Conference) it is just that I haven’t made it a priority.
The load weighs heavier these days. Even though I wrote nothing in the last two weeks, I have more subscribers today than I did two weeks ago. This is primarily from new readers Googling search terms, finding this site, and becoming regular readers. Over 6000 people read this blog every week.
I struggle between posting short notes on current events and writing in depth pieces. It would be easier to post more if I wrote more topically, more like a traditional blog. I try and restrict myself to posting only when my opinions are unique, unseen and uncorrelated with outside information. This is not easy to do on a daily basis. It’s even harder if you try to be non-mainstream and right. I reserve the right to compromise my standards in the future. You reserve the right to stop reading.
I do post interesting links in the column to the right and add limited commentary. Even when I’m not writing in depth, I am posting links. They don’t show up in the RSS Feed but I think they make checking the blog every few days worthwhile.
In the meantime, take the time to read Bill Koss and his take on Clearwire. Bill’s blog is the best example of the anti-cut-and-paste blog mentality, where many blog authors all write about the same events without adding any value.
Who Pays for the Online Video Boom?
Everyone talks about the explosion in Video traffic. Everyone talks about the explosion in the bandwidth required to carry it. No one talks about who is going to pay for it. There is one likely source: transit bandwidth inflation.
Bill Gates on the HAL9000
From an interview with Romanian Press:
Journalist: Let’s imagine a hospital where life support systems are running Vista. Would you trust it with your life?
Comcast: Party Like it’s 1999
Big surprise from Comcast (CMCSA) today in the capex department. Barrons has a nice summary of the results. Revenue, subscribers, operating cash flow all met the expectations of the frothing massess, except Capex projections for next year were $1B higher than anticipated. Yes, 20% higher. Updated w/Chart
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