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"Opinion of the month"
Vegas slot machines and investing in the stock market are similar.
Some people put their chips/coins into video poker machines for hours and either run out of money or change machines and invariably some lucky gambler sits at the very same machine and hits the mega jackpot.
I believe NVEI is the same, Brad mentioned that not all current shareholders will enjoy the final success he sees in our future just like the slots, there is always a winner.
I hope you guys are also there with me to count our well deserved winnings from Rim.
By the way, our Bank in California was not affected by the fire in San Diego. We have many branches according to local management to make deposits.
34Simmons
Quotes..I like and look forward to all these inspirational statements/quotes, as they have meaning with other parts of a human beings life, however they don't seem to affect the charts of NVEI or we investors all that much and for me are a pleasant distraction.
34Simmons
Will Rim be manufactured here?
TSMC's Net Profit Surged Nearly Fivefold in Quarter
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Tuesday said its net profit rose nearly fivefold in the third quarter, due to stronger demand for its chips.
The world's largest producer of made-to-order chips reported net profit rose to 15.17 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$447.4 million), or NT$0.75 per share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, from NT$3.16 billion in the year-earlier period. In the second quarter, TSMC posted net profit of NT$11.73 billion.
The result was also better than analysts' expectations for a net profit of NT$14.2 billion, or NT$0.70 per share, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.
TSMC's revenue increased 38% to NT$54.88 billion, from NT$39.84 billion, breaking the company's record of NT$53.82 billion that was set in the fourth quarter of 2000.
Lora Ho, spokeswoman and vice president at TSMC, said wafer shipments in the period increased 12% from the previous quarter due to growth in customer demand.
The company's gross margin rose to 39.1% in the third quarter from 36.8% in the second quarter, as revenue from TSMC's advanced manufacturing processes increased, she added.
Looking ahead, the company gave a mixed outlook for the fourth quarter.
The company expects its October-December shipments to rise by a figure in the mid-to-high single-digit percentage range from the previous quarter, but sees average selling prices declining slightly, according to Morris Chang, TSMC's chairman.
Demand is improving in the communications sector but declining in the computer and consumer sectors, Mr. Chang said.
Updated October 28, 2003 3:54 a.m.
Largest-ever network launched
By Carolyn Duffy Marsan
The University of New Hampshire, the U.S. Department of Defense
and the North American IPv6 Task Force have joined forces to
deploy the largest-ever network based on IPv6, the
next-generation of the Internet's main communications protocol.
AT&T, Sprint and NTT are among the ISPs that are supporting the
network, which aims to boost IPv6 usage in the U.S. by providing a platform for testing, training and software development.
Dubbed Moonv6, the IPv6 network is a "multimillion effort if you consider the retail cost of the equipment, services and
engineering involved," says Ben Schultz, managing engineer at
UNH's Interoperability Lab. All the ISPs involved with Moonv6
donated their services and engineering support to the IPv6
network.
Developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force, IPv6 promises
easier administration, tighter security and an enhanced
addressing scheme over IPv4, the Internet's current protocol.
IPv6, which uses a 128-bit addressing scheme, supports a
virtually limitless number of uniquely identified systems on the 'Net, while IPv4 supports only a few billion systems because it uses a 32-bit addressing scheme.
Despite its promise, IPv6 has been slow to catch on because it
requires a costly and time-consuming upgrade to the Internet's
backbone and edge systems. The IETF finalized IPv6 in 1998, but
few U.S. ISPs or enterprises are deploying the technology.
Moonv6 is designed to help U.S. ISPs, network equipment
suppliers, software developers and enterprise network managers
gain real-world experience with IPv6, which is already being
adopted in Asia and Europe.
"Our goals with Moonv6 are to increase the level of
understanding and experience for North American constituents
that will adopt IPv6," says Jim Bound, chairman of the North
American IPv6 Task Force and an HP fellow. "We wish to
demonstrate that IPv6 is a robust, core networking
infrastructure technology that can be used now, today."
Moonv6 links UNH's Interoperability Laboratory with U.S.
military sites in Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, New
Jersey, South Carolina and Virginia. More than 80 servers,
switches and nodes at these sites are hooked up to Moonv6 and
are running both IPv4 and IPv6. In addition, half of the
universities connected to Internet2, another next-generation
Internet project, can access Moonv6 because their routers are
IPv6 enabled.
Moonv6 carries native IPv6 traffic but also supports tunneling
and other techniques that have been developed to aid in the
transition between IPv4 and IPv6. Engineers have succeeded in
running File Transfer Protocol, Telnet and teleconferencing
applications on Moonv6, the project's organizers said.
"Our preliminary results show that IPv6 is stable, resilient and ready for integration with today's Internet," Schultz says.
Moonv6 has been operational since early October.
Thirty organizations will be conducting IPv6 interoperability
testing and application development on the Moonv6 network during the next six months. The organizations that created Moonv6 hope to keep the network up and running permanently as the North American IPv6 backbone.
Moonv6 is open to any company that wants to test IPv6.
Participation fees are $2,000.
Surfs Up...........
Posted 04:08 PM EST, Oct-27-2003
Lions Gate finally bags Artisan by Peter Lauria
Updated 07:12 PM EST, Oct-27-2003
It took two years, but Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. finally caught its prey, announcing Monday, Oct. 27, a deal to acquire Artisan Entertainment valued at a minimum of $220 million.
Under the deal's terms, Toronto-based Lions Gate will pay $160 million in cash and assume roughly $60 million of Artisan debt for an enterprise value of $220 million. The deal also provides for additional cash payments to Artisan's shareholders based on the theatrical performance of such film releases as "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" and "The Punisher" next year. A source close to the negotiations estimates an additional $40 million in equity for Artisan shareholders is possible.
Sources said Lions Gate will fund the deal with the $73 million in proceeds generated from a recent stock offering and by drawing down a $350 million revolving credit facility J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has set up for the combined company. SG Cowen Securities lead-managed the stock offering, with Natexis Bleichroeder and Thomas Weisel Partners serving as co-managers. J.P. Morgan is currently syndicating the credit facility, the source said.
Artisan's investors — among them controlling shareholder The Audax Group (with a 26% stake); Chicago-based Richland, Gordon & Co. (19%); Canada's CTV Inc. (20%); Allen & Co. (5%); and management (30%) — will see a return on investment of between 2 and 2.5 times. Those who participated in Audax's 1999 recapitalization of Artisan, according to a second source, stand to reap $40 million in profit between them from Monday's deal.
From a financial perspective, Lions Gate looks a lot like Artisan did before CEO Amir Malin engineered a turnaround that prompted Artisan's investors to conduct a second auction this March. Artisan first tested the waters about a sale in 2000, after rejecting a $250 million buyout offer from Barry Diller's USA Networks Inc. But nobody came near meeting its $300 million floor, thereby forcing a retreat.
At the time of the first auction, Artisan — best known as the company behind "The Blair Witch Project" — featured total debt of $265 million and Ebitda of around $32 million. When the Lions Gate deal closes, some time before year's end, Artisan will carry only $60 million in debt and have Ebitda in the $45 million to $50 million range. Lions Gate, by contrast, currently has debt of about $190 million and analysts project under $30 million in Ebitda this year.
Still, the deal is expected to be "enormously deleveraging" for Lions Gate, said another source. According to this person, Lions Gate's total debt to trailing 12-month Ebitda will decline to 5.2 times from 11.7 times.
Just under half of Artisan's Ebitda comes from its 3,500-title film library, second in size only to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.'s collection. The library's steady financial generation provides an effective counter to the hit-and-miss economics of film production. And its exactly what Lions Gate needs to offset its production-heavy operation. Sources said it was this strategic fit that gave Lions Gate the edge over a similar bid submitted by former USA Films chairman Scott Greenstein and his backers at private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners.
ASICs going but not gone, panel says
By Crista Souza
EBN
October 24, 2003 (9:58 a.m. ET)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Cost pressures, changing requirements, and short design windows seem to favor programmable chip solutions, but are ASICs becoming extinct? Not exactly, according to industry experts.
A panel of experts at the Network Processor Conference here said the industry is witnessing the evolution of ASICs. What new form they will remains to be seen.
“Darwin was right,” said Warren Miller, vice president of marketing for Avnet Design Services, a unit of distributor Avnet Inc. (Phoenix). “What you see out there won't be a dinosaur anymore, it will be something else.”
ASICs continue to dominate in network processing applications, not because they are the best solution, but because OEMs have already invested in the design work and are reluctant to switch to a new chip architecture, said Allan Armstrong, an analyst at RHK, (South San Francisco, Calif.).
Market forces are beginning to change that mindset, he said.A February 2003 survey by Avnet of 73 customers, primarily in wired and wireless communications segments, bore out what pundits and chip suppliers have been saying for some time — that the projected lifetime volume of designs peaks in the 1,000 to 10,000-unit range, ASIC design cycles are unpredictable, and market requirements constantly change.
“I believe the broad use of cell-based ASICs is over,” said Robert Blake, vice president of product planning at Altera Corp., based here. “New pressures are changing the rules and opening up opportunities, mainly for FPGAs in the low-density space, and structured ASICs in the high density space.”
The opportunity for “structured” approaches is determined by various sources between $2 billion and $5 billion. “That's stolen mainly from standard-cell ASICs, not FPGAs,” said Doug Bailey, vice president of marketing at Chip Express Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.).
Even so, structured ASICs have largely been identified with FPGA-to-ASIC conversions, leaving suppliers with a marketing dilemma. Some are clearly on the defensive with regard to reprogrammability, the one FPGA feature ASICs can't compete with.
Reprogrammability ends up on the bench in most mission-critical applications, said Majid Bemanian, senior director of marketing for communications products at LSI Logic Corp. (Milpitas, Calif.).
“You can value reprogrammability in all kinds of ways, but it's a very expensive cost,” said Chip Express' Bailey. “FPGAs are great tools for prototyping and emulation, but you would have to be crazy to put one into production.”
Others maintained the need for flexibility favors programmable platforms.
“A $5 billion industry can't be driven by a bunch of 'crazy' customers,” asserted Krishna Rangasayee, director of vertical market strategy at Xilinx Inc. (San Jose).
“I've seen a lot of projects go wrong because engineers got it wrong, but I've seen a lot more go wrong because the requirements changed,” added RHK's Armstrong. “Programmability is something I think is fundamental to a lot of communication platforms' needs.”
Stefan Tamme, vice president of sales and marketing at Leopard Logic Inc., added that a hybrid architecture is needed that combines the best of FPGA and ASIC and drops the limitations of each. Tamme said the Cupertino, Calif., startup is preparing a January launch of a product that he claims fits the bill, but he declined to elaborate.
RHK's Armstrong agreed that ASICs have to change, but in the end may take on many shapes. “I believe a lot of next- generation boxes will contain something other than ASICs,” he said. “It could be ASIC-plus-FPGA or ASIC-plus-network processor or something else, but some sort of hybrid architecture will be required.”
From MMM........could apply to Rim?
No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months.
Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."
(R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)
PLUGGED IN by MARK VEVERKA
Dow Jones, Reuters It's Still Not "Next Year" for Mobile
THE FUTURE IS NOT now for the fledgling wireless industry. Just as for the Cubs and Red Sox, "Wait 'til next year" has been the mantra emanating from this eternally optimistic group of innovators and marketers. And despite rosy proclamations to the contrary, this year is not "next year." Aside from the legendary dot-commers, no sector of technology or telecom has seen more wide-eyed venture dollars and unmitigated hype. And while they try to convince us otherwise, the glass half-full folks are looking at a nascent industry still groping for revenues and meaningful profit.
That's our take from the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association's (CTIA) second most important confab of the year, held last week in Las Vegas. To be fair, the industry is doing better than it was during the depths of the telecom depression in 2000-2002. The buzz is much more positive and a handful of companies are making tangible progress. There certainly is directional improvement as more people use mobile phones than ever before, racking up record-setting minutes. But the promise of an always-on, always-connected life is still worlds away.
Nothing could be more glaring than the pathetic mobile-phone coverage in North America. You have to admit, it is kind of funny to be attending a convention celebrating mobile communications and nobody's phones are working without some sort of glitch. Even heads of the biggest carriers experienced multiple service drop-offs while trying to call each other during the trade show.
The fact remains few privately held start-ups seem to be making much money which it makes it less likely they will go public anytime soon. Wireless software developers in particular are struggling as they wait for corporate information-technology decision makers to start deploying features such as mobile e-mail throughout their work force. One wireless dealmaker estimates that few privately held wireless software firms are generating more than $20 million a year in revenues with most in the single-digit millions. Considering the hundreds of millions that have been pumped into the sector, that's not much to write home about.
Bill Nguyen, Seven's founder and president, says as much. Seven, of Redwood City, Calif., offers a mobile operating system in the U.S. through partners Sprint and Cingular. The good news, he says, is that Seven's revenues have nearly doubled each of the past two years in a brutal market. The bad news is that 2003 revenues are barely going to break $10 million. Of course, Seven, which raised $64 million in venture backing, is dependent on the salespeople of the mobile carriers to sell its e-mail services, over whom it has little control. "If we could do it ourselves, we definitely would do better in sales," Nguyen says.
Seven, along with companies such as privately held Good Technology, are challenging incumbent market-leader Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry handheld device, which has some 700,000 subscribers mostly in North America. Seven and Good have the potential to unseat RIM because of current technological and cost advantages and their willingness to embrace different kinds of phones and handheld devices made by a wider array of companies. Good, for example, has teamed with low-cost producer Dell and handheld innovator Handspring, whose merger with Palm is slated to close Oct. 28. (Our colleague Eric Savitz ably charted the challenges facing RIM in "Blackberry Blues," Sept. 1.)
For its part, Seven recently partnered with Sprint, which offers Handspring's new Treo 600, a sleek handheld device with a keyboard, color screen and camera that also provides mobile-phone service along with wireless e-mail, messaging and Web browsing. It represents the kind of all-in-one device that many people have been waiting for. "The network capabilities we offer now can deliver on the promise of wireless," says Jason Guesman, a director of business marketing for Sprint.
Meantime, Nguyen is turning to Japan for faster growth. Seven has hooked up with NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, two major Japanese mobile carriers, to reach potentially 80% of Japan's mobile subscribers and become the dominant provider of e-mail services there. His thinking is that Japanese consumers and corporate customers are demanding and experienced users of mobile-data services on some of the most advanced networks in the world. If he gets it right in Japan, then he can get it right in North America, he figures. Despite the continued promotion of so-called "smart devices," like Handspring's Treo in the U.S., Nguyen is betting that the Japanese will prefer accessing their e-mail via small telephone handsets. This is yet another example of the disagreement among cultures and markets about the best way to unwire our lives.
Still, Nguyen argues that Seven has beaten RIM to the punch in Japan by potentially locking in the majority of the nation's 75 million subscribers before its Canadian competitor even enters the market. But it remains to be seen whether Japan's big corporations -- Seven's target customers -- will want to deploy mobile e-mail services to their employees as rapidly as their kids adopted games on their mobile phones.
As we noted at the outset, the industry is trying to accentuate the positive. CTIA chief executive Tom Wheeler opened last week's trade show claiming "skyrocketing data revenues and strong annual growth in overall revenues, subscribership and usage." Total wireless-service revenues rose nearly 13% to $41.4 billion in the first half of the year compared to the same six-month period a year ago. Data revenues are up 70% to $700 million -- against a relatively weak comparable number -- for the first six months of this year, and the number of billable minutes of use is up 30% for the first half of this year. "This is hard evidence" that the wireless carriers and data services have arrived, he said.
To be sure, more people are using mobile phones than ever before. But the carriers -- who happen to be the only players with ample capital -- have not been investing at a rate that would fuel the industry's graduation to the next generation of premium content and services.
The progress has been paltry. Qpass, a retooled Internet-portal-management play that three years ago transformed into a software service aimed at wireless network companies, announced that revenues from phone users who bought premium mobile services grew 148% during the first eight months of this year. But they don't tell us what the revenues actually were, and we suspect the number was pretty small. Again, the trend may be positive -- which certainly beats the alternative -- but the actual amount of activity for wireless software applications -- the whiz-bang features that were supposed to thrust us into the Jetsons' age -- have yet to materialize in proportion to the pre-bubble hype.
As for next year, pitchers and catchers report to spring training in less than four months.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail comments to editors@barrons.com
Investors fled Cablevision Systems Corp. like Pamplona tourists running from the bulls after the company revealed amended plans late Thursday to spin off its satellite television service and three cable networks into a separate entity.
But like those would-be Hemingways who duck into alleyways and never make it to the bull ring, fleeing investors may miss the main event now that Cablevision has cleared the way to exit its core cable business, now run by James Dolan.
Cablevision's plans, made public Thursday, Oct. 23, call for its Voom satellite television operation and national cable networks American Movie Classics, the Independent Film Channel and WE: Women's Entertainment to be spun off into a new company dubbed Rainbow DBS. Cablevision will retain its 3 million-subscriber New York-centric cable system, its Lightpath telecommunications operation, Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, Clearview Cinemas, New York Knicks and Rangers sports franchises and a smattering of regional sports networks. Charles Dolan will lead the new venture as chairman and CEO.
Moving to preempt questions about possible divestitures, Cablevision said, "There are no plans to sell the entertainment services following the spinoff." Viacom Inc. and several other potential buyers expressed interest in acquiring AMC after Cablevision and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. sold the Bravo cable channel to General Electric Co.'s NBC last year.
What the company didn't say, however, was whether plans called for an eventual exit of its traditional cable business. Rumors have long persisted that Time Warner Inc. would buy Cablevision's systems. Given its intention to carry through with a satellite offering, those whispers will surely grow louder as the plan moves forward.
"The creation of a nearly pure-play cable company combined with the departure of Charles Dolan may lead some to look at Cablevision as an attractive takeover candidate," said Agawam Partners LLC founder Francis L'Esperance, who added that most of the risk now associated with Cablevision will move to the new venture in the spinoff.
The new plan calls for the elimination of the $450 million Cablevision originally planned to contribute to the operation. Instead, the company will increase its Rainbow DBS investment this year to $261 million, from $194 million.
We "might" just probably perhaps get some news regarding funding someday "soon".
Activity suggests we are about due for a break with positive affirmations from money sources.
JMHO of course!
34Simmons
from WSJ:
"All of the regional Bell companies, BellSouth included, face a steady decline of their core local-telephony business, a trend they aim to slow by expanding into other business areas, such as high-speed-Internet and long-distance services."
Some day in the future Embarq will wake up local executives who figure out that landline connections are dropping fast.
SBC Results Hurt by Landline Woes
Phone Firm's Net Falls 29%
On 3% Revenue Decline;
DSL Subscribers Jump 20%
By ALMAR LATOUR and JESSE DRUCKER
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SBC Communications Inc.'s net income and revenue dropped in the third quarter, as the nation's second-largest phone company's sharp gains in wireless, long-distance and high-speed Internet subscribers failed to make up for continued losses of landline phone subscribers and increased pension and health-care costs.
The San Antonio company said third-quarter net income fell 29% to $1.22 billion, or 37 cents a share, from $1.71 billion, or 51 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue dropped 3% to $10.24 billion, with revenue at SBC's core landline phone business falling to $5.5 billion, down 11%.
SBC said it saw a "significant" improvement in the rate of decline of its access lines during the quarter, with retail access lines lost in its long-distance states 40% lower than a year earlier. The company added 48,000 wholesale lines in long-distance states, down 82% from its increase last year.
The company saw a continued increase of broadband, long-distance and wireless subscribers. SBC added 365,000 new digital-subscriber-line, or DSL, customers in the quarter, 20% more than the number of new DSL subscribers that were signed up during the prior quarter. The sharp customer increase marks the seventh-consecutive quarter of subscriber gains for the division. SBC now has a total of 3.1 million Internet lines, putting it among the nation's largest high-speed Internet service providers.
SBC also added 1.7 million long-distance lines, bringing its total number of long-distance customers to 11.5 million, almost double from a year ago and a 17% increase from the second quarter. Chief Financial Officer Randall Stephenson said that long-distance lines are likely to help reduce line losses in the company's traditional local-phone business, as customers are more likely to stay with a phone-service provider when they sign up for more than one phone service.
The news was disappointing in wireless, SBC's second-biggest business, where results were reported on Monday evening. Although Cingular Wireless, 60%-owned by SBC, reported strong subscriber growth, its operating income was down 21%, driven by higher expenses. These included more aggressive retention programs -- such as higher phone subsidies -- in anticipation of new "number portability" rules, scheduled to take effect next month. (See article)
The new rules are expected to raise costs and hurt earnings across the wireless industry, and investors are carefully monitoring financial results to see whether the effects are being felt yet. In addition, Cingular's average subscriber revenue per user, already one of the lowest in the industry, fell 1%. And monthly customer turnover, or "churn," rose to 2.8% from 2.5% in the second quarter, well above the industrywide average. Although that churn rate was down from 3% a year earlier, it was twice as high as the rate turned in by Nextel Communications Inc., the only other U.S. wireless carrier to report third-quarter results so far.
SBC's Mr. Stephenson said the phone company's plans to offer satellite television service to its customers are on track for the first quarter of the year. He said that the company will target its existing DSL customer base with the product, and that it will offer the product at a discount when combined with SBC phone or Internet services.
SBC shares were down 40 cents Tuesday to $22 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Write to Almar Latour at almar.latour@wsj.com and Jesse Drucker at jesse.drucker@wsj.com
Updated October 22, 2003
2004 is our Year!
Gartner predicts the future of IT
By Dan Farber
October 20, 2003 Forward in Format for
ORLANDO, FL -- "2004 will be the year that the majority of companies make the turn from protecting profitability to driving growth." That's the latest prediction from Gartner CEO Michael Fleisher as he kicked off the annual Symposium/ITxpo 2003 here. Fleisher told the audience of 6,000 IT professionals that the days of cost cutting and control are not over, but are fading as the main preoccupation of IT and business executives. He cited indications of increased IT spending to distinguish his optimistic forecast from wishful thinking.
"Cost cutting will remain important, but it will no longer be your CEO's number one priority. Innovation to support growth will emerge as your CEO's number one priority," Fleisher said. Gartner predicted IT spending would increase about 5 percent per year through 2005 and take off in 2006.
If innovation means getting more leverage out of existing IT investments and taking practical steps toward new platforms like Web services and virtualizing infrastructure resources, then I agree with Fleisher's assessment. It's not a return to the unbridled IT spending of the 1990's on whiteboard concepts, but looking for strategic opportunities to apply technology or process innovations to drive efficiencies and profitability. In other words, the ROI must be demonstrable and within a reasonable timeframe.
On the cost control side, Fleisher mentioned the usual suspects--outsourcing non-strategic functions, standardizing infrastructure components and cutting down the number of vendors and technologies--as key ongoing trends. However, any desire to control costs without considering the big picture is a dead end. The goal of creating a more a standards-based infrastructure, for example, should be undertaken to pave the way for the next generation of computing, not just for cutting costs. And, Fleisher noted that cost cutting and innovation will be parallel paths taken by leading enterprises, but there will more of an emphasis on innovating than cost cutting in the next few years.
In a session focusing on the future of IT, Gartner analysts Carl Claunch and Al Lill drilled down on what technologies would drive a massive resurgence in innovation over the next decade. They predicted that the next generation of computing, build around service-oriented software architecture and always-on communications, would reach fruition in the 2006 through 2009 timeframe.
Claunch predicted that 2006 would be a pivotal year for infrastructure, with improved solutions for blade management, mixed workload efficiency, distributed performance management, dynamic virtual partitioning beginning to mature. However, he doesn't expect utility computing with self-healing systems, policy-based management, commercial grids and distributed workload management to mature until the 2009-2014 timeframe. As a result of virtualizing resources and creating more autonomic capabilities, as well as the ongoing march of Moore's Law, the human cost to support an infrastructure is expected to decline significantly.
Predictably, Lill forecast that wireless networks will have a profound impact, based on the pervasiveness of wireless in hardware devices and secure wireless maturing around 2006. Combined with low-cost, low-power-consuming computing devices and displays, wireless will enable the always-on connectivity that create demand for new kinds of corporate and consumer applications. Wireless technology, such as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), will dramatically improve the efficiency of transportation, logistics, distribution, and retail operations, Fleisher said.
Lill also noted that wired broadband would reach critical mass--half of those in the U.S. who are connected to the Internet--by 2006.
Of course, applications are key to delivering innovation, and a massive shift in software architecture is underway, according to Claunch. He predicted a dramatic shift toward service-oriented design architecture beginning in 2006. "Unlike prior object-oriented programming environments, where some amount of internal knowledge was needed to ensure correct use of an object, the Web service interface is a black curtain," Claunch said. Web services and the service-oriented architecture are built for more streamlined software development and reusability, and the composite applications can consume services on the fly as needed at execution time. Web services standards for transactions, business process management, security and other domains will greatly ease the cost and complexity of integrating disparate systems. In one of the great technology understatements, Claunch said: "Interoperability is cheaper than integration."
The next wave of technology--the confluence of pervasive wireless, real-time infrastructure, service-oriented architecture and low power-consumption mobile devices--will be a catalyst that could transform or kill entire industries and spawn new ones. "What's happening in the music industry is nothing compared to what will happen to the pharmaceutical, publishing, media, advertising, retail, transport and financial services industries," Lill said.
Based on where we are today, you can clearly see the origins of the predictions generated by Gartner's prognosticators. The vast majority of enterprises will move incrementally toward leveraging the confluence of technologies, in part driven by the large vendors who will have more power to set the agenda as the economic climate for IT investment improves and consolidation continues to thin out the ranks of companies in any product category.
Claiming that the confluence of those technologies around 2006 will result in massive breakthroughs, systemic industry mutations and disruptive innovations akin to the Internet (which had a gestation period of a few decades) in the mid-1990's is a stretch. But, companies should look closely at the various technologies and emerging products to determine how any combination of them can help you stay ahead of the curve or risk getting run over by more nimble competitors.
The China Syndrome
U.S. companies are beginning to outsource technology research and development to India and China. Will a meltdown in tech jobs follow?
Abe De Ramos, CFO Magazine
Mike Sophie has good reason to smile these days. In a year that's been rough for almost every business sector, the CFO and vice president of finance at Alameda, California-based UTStarcom is expecting an 86 percent jump in revenue, from $982 million in 2002 to a record $1.8 billion. And he hopes that's just the beginning. The company, which provides mobile telephony suited to emerging markets, is soon to deploy the technology in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. To that end, UTStarcom earmarked $25 million in July to expand its research-and-development center and hire about 100 engineers. If that sounds like a lot of bang for the buck, it is—because the R&D center is based in India.
CFOs still wondering whether or not to send back-office functions offshore are far behind the outsourcing vanguard. Increasingly, technology R&D is migrating overseas. Intel, for example, is developing Banias, its next-generation mobile processor, in Israel; Nortel Networks is developing its wireless Internet infrastructure in India.
Cost advantage and a vast talent pool are driving the trend. India is the overall outsourcing leader, followed by Ireland and the Philippines. But China is rapidly gaining ground (see "China Wants Our IT Jobs, Too," at the end of this article). In general, the movement of high-end jobs offshore can only accelerate, says Partha Iyengar, a research vice president at Stamford, Connecticut-based consulting firm Gartner.
To be sure, there is also a strategic reason why UTStarcom is locating R&D activity outside the United States: it sells almost all of its products and services overseas. Currently the company has more than 1,400 engineers in China, which accounted for 80 percent of 2002 revenues. It also has 150 engineers in India, which should overtake Japan as its second-largest market next year.
Meanwhile, foreign companies are getting in on the outsourcing act. In August, French telecom giant Alcatel raised its R&D investment in China to $100 million. "Our goal is to develop China as an R&D center not just for China, but for the rest of our global business," says Christian Gregoire, chief technology officer of Alcatel Asia Pacific. The $18.5 billion-a-year firm is betting big on third-generation mobile infrastructure and applications, and chose Shanghai as the first site outside Europe for this development task.
The Shanghai facility has access to Alcatel's global technology pool, and all projects in China are planned and performed under the same system, and with the same objectives, as other R&D centers worldwide, says Gregoire. "China offers a very cost-competitive talent pool of R&D engineers, so there is ready availability," he adds.
Court hangs up state VoIP rules
By Ben Charny and Evan Hansen
CNET News.com
October 17, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
URL: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-5092708.html
A court opinion released Thursday could help propel the upstart Internet phone industry to the front ranks of telecommunications.
The industry stands to benefit from a legal distinction drawn by a U.S. District judge in defining Internet and traditional telephone services. The ruling is being closely watched by industry executives and consumers nationwide as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services struggle to move into the mainstream.
News.context
What's new:
A federal judge explains his decision on a ruling that permanently bars Minnesota from applying traditional telephone rules to Vonage, a pioneer in Internet telephone calls.
Bottom line:
The decision, which says that Internet phone companies should not be held to the same regulations as traditional telephone services, could be used to nullify future VoIP regulations expected from about a dozen states now deciding whether to use Minnesota's model.
For more info:
Track the players
In a 22-page opinion released Thursday, Judge Michael J. Davis of the district of Minnesota wrote that VoIP provider Vonage is an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service" and therefore exempt from state regulation. The opinion was issued a week after the judge ordered an injunction permanently barring Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission from forcing Vonage to get a telephone operator's license to do business in the state.
Legal experts said the decision offers an early win for VoIP in what's sure to be a drawn-out legal battle with state regulators and local phone carriers worried about losing market share to a new brand of competitor.
"This is a transformational issue that will rock the phone industry to its core," said one VoIP industry advocate, who asked to remain anonymous.
The Minnesota opinion furthers a contentious debate over how--or even if--governments should regulate new Internet services. Earlier this month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came down on the opposite side of the debate, throwing out the Federal Communication Commission's classification of cable broadband as an information service.
State regulators have threatened to stall VoIP's growth by forcing providers to follow the same rules as do traditional phone companies.
Unlike phone networks, data networks have been left largely unregulated and untaxed to help spur growth. This has raised concerns for groups such as the Multistate Tax Commission that Internet-style services could jeopardize billions of dollars in state funding for programs, including universal telephone service, 911 emergency services and the e-rate school technology fund.
Revising definitions
Thursday's opinion highlights growing pressure on the rules and definitions that have molded the telephone industry for much of the past century. It also sharpens the focus on those rules' exemptions carved out by Congress and the FCC for new services arising from the Internet. Since the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, regulators have sought to draw a strict division between voice networks and data networks. But with the rise of VoIP, that distinction is rapidly collapsing.
"It's a mess," said Kevin Werbach, founder of consulting firm Supernova Group and former FCC counsel for new technology. "The distinction between information and telecommunications services is in the 1996 act, but it assumes they are completely distinct...Today, all networks are digital and can provide many services in many different ways. (Regulators) are trying to come to an end result within a flawed legal framework."
Vonage filed suit against Minnesota's PUC after the agency in August became the first in the United States to claim authority over VoIP. Since Minnesota's order, California has asserted authority over VoIP providers, and other states say they are reviewing their policies.
Six VoIP companies have until Oct. 22 to get a California telephone license or face disciplinary action.
California has said it plans to move forward with its efforts regardless of the Minnesota case, while others have taken a wait-and-see approach pending the release of Davis' opinion.
'Congress has spoken'
Thursday's broadly worded decision could prove influential in setting a framework for VoIP regulation.
In the opinion, Davis relied heavily on interpretations of information services developed by the FCC in light of anti-Internet regulation policies put forward by Congress.
"Congress has spoken with unmistakable clarity on the issue of regulating the Internet," Davis wrote, noting exemptions for Internet service providers from interstate taxes as one sign of Congress' intent to leave the Net unregulated.
Drawing on an FCC policy paper known as the Universal Service Report, Davis spelled out a four-part test for determining whether a phone service should be classified as a telecommunications service, rather than an information service. Vonage has asserted that it fails two of the four tests.
Davis concluded that Vonage's DigitalVoice service does not match all of the FCC's criteria and that it is therefore an information service. Namely, he said, Vonage uses a digital converter that translates data between an IP format and an analog phone signal to complete computer-to-phone and phone-to-computer calls.
Legal experts observed that the decision could leave the door open for regulators to assert limited authority over some types of VoIP calls. AT&T, for example, has petitioned the FCC for a ruling that VoIP traffic carried on its network should not be subject to normal completion tolls paid to local phone companies. But those calls might still be found to be telecommunications services under Davis' interpretation of the FCC's four-part test.
About 1 million people use VoIP in the United States, using paid services such as Vonage, Net2Phone and Packet8. Others use free services such as Skype, Free World Dial-Up, SipPhone or those from major instant messaging providers to chat only between computers.
In addition, about 2.1 million cable subscribers now use a broadband connection to make phone calls that use non-VoIP technology. Cable providers are now deciding whether to upgrade those networks to VoIP systems, which are a more cost-effective method than the telephone switches they now use.
The main draw for consumers is the price of a phone call. Subscription services are either free or cheaper than traditional phone service by as much as $20 a month. VoIP calls are cheaper because they avoid the toll roads of the telephone companies' private networks.
Major telephone companies are also using VoIP to route calls at significantly lower costs. For now, about 10 percent of all telephone calls use the Internet in some way. But most analysts believe that in about a decade, nearly every call will use the Internet.
Phone companies weighed in on Thursday's opinion with a call for further deregulation of VoIP.
"The problem is that the FCC and the state commissions have not rationalized the level of regulations that should apply to different participants and different technologies," said Steve Davis, senior vice president of public policy at Qwest Communications. "The government needs to stop regulating based on the technology or the provider. Instead it should look at the service if the service is something based in a competitive market where regulations are no longer necessary."
VoIP "should be allowed to grow and shouldn't be held captive to the old regulatory regime that current telephony is saddled with," added an AT&T representative.
CNET News.com's Jim Hu contributed to this report.
OT
World Series - Best of Seven. Game 1
951 Florida Marlins Brad Penny+1½(-120)+162 9½ -120)o(EVEN)u
952 New York Yankees David Wells-1½(EVEN)-172
Money flooding the NYY lines
TELECOM UPDATES
Telecom's Future: Made in China?
At the industry's global confab, the most telling development is the emergence of Chinese upstarts with the potential to become giants.
The quadrennial ITU Telecom World show in Geneva may be a worldwide confab, but one global trend has a lot of people worried. Occupying prime real estate smack in the middle of the exhibition hall are booths from two of the fastest-growing communications-equipment makers on the planet, Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp., both based in mainland China. While telecom's old guard -- Lucent Technologies (LU ), Nortel Networks (NT ), Alcatel (ALA ), Ericsson (ERICY ), Siemens (SI ), Motorola (MOT ), and others -- fight to stave off flat or declining sales, these ambitious Chinese upstarts are logging revenue gains up to 30% annually.
Perhaps the most startling and visible manifestation of this divergence of fortunes was also on the exhibition floor of Telecom World 2003, sponsored by the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union. Most of the old giants don't even have booths. After spending an estimated $40 million on its lavish display at the Telecom 1999 show, Alcatel, for instance, opted instead to sit this one out. "It's the changing of the guard," says one analyst.
DOMESTIC FUEL. That's likely too strong a conclusion. Huawei and ZTE had 2002 revenues of $2.7 billion and $2 billion, respectively, while U.S. and European players fell in the range of $12 billion to $30 billion. But the trend lines are irrefutable. Blessed with a surging domestic market and solid engineers who are paid as little as one-tenth as much as their Western counterparts, Chinese equipment giants are gaining sales at the expense of rivals with lower-price products that perform most, if not all, of the same functions.
This year's Telecom World show may not signal the changing of the guard, but it certainly signifies the emergence on the global stage of potent new players (see BW Special Report, 10/20/03, "The Wireless Challenge").
The strong Chinese market is a big source of their success. In 2001, it became the world's largest mobile market -- now with an estimated 240 million subscribers. And last year China overtook the U.S. for the first time in fixed-line connections. Service revenues still lag well behind those in the U.S. and Japan, but supplying the exploding domestic market with traditional phone circuit switches, mobile equipment, Internet routers, and even handsets has been extremely lucrative for China's hometown heroes.
MOVIN' ON UP. Now they're increasingly turning their sights to the export market. Their ace, of course, is dramatically lower prices, thanks to the cut-rate cost of Chinese engineering and manufacturing. Some 75% of ZTE's sales come from China today, but by 2008, senior vice-president Shi Lirong told the ITU Telecom World 2003 show daily newsletter, ZTE aims to have annual sales of $10 billion, half from outside China.
Huawei has achieved a similar level of exports, with 20% of last year's revenues coming from outside China. In 2003, says Executive Vice-President Wen Wei Xu, overall sales are expected to climb 30%, to $3.5 billion, while the dollar value of exports should surge 100%, to more than 30% of revenues.
Both companies now get the bulk of their non-Chinese sales in the developing world, where Western suppliers aren't as ingrained and where buyers on limited budgets are more likely to be attracted to inexpensive Chinese equipment. But Huawei and ZTE are convinced they will succeed eventually at moving up the food chain.
"There's a growing acceptance of our products in developed markets, and we're building up higher levels of trust," Huawei's Xu told the ITU show newsletter. Agrees ZTE's Lirong: "In four to five years, ZTE will start making the vendor short list for international operators."
REBUILDING CREDIBILITY. The old guard is still talking a tough line, however. "Huawei has a lot of growing up to do," says Niel Ransom, chief technology officer for Paris-based Alcatel. "It remains to be seen whether it can compete in more complex stuff." Indeed, the Chinese company rocketed to fame earlier this year when it was sued by networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO ) for allegedly copying Cisco technology in knock-off routers and switches.
The suit has since been suspended, though not dropped, by mutual agreement of both parties, as they try to reach a less adversarial resolution. In the meantime, Huawei has entered into highly visible partnerships with networking pioneer 3Com (COMS ) and Germany's Siemens, which have helped restore its credibility and assuage customer concerns over the legality of Huawei's technology.
Still, the feeling remains that Chinese vendors are mostly reusing Western engineering, not inventing much of their own. As with earlier technology migrations from the U.S. to the Far East in the consumer-electronics and PC businesses, Asian makers are helping commoditize once esoteric and high-margin products -- saving money for buyers but pulling down prices and profits for established suppliers.
IRREVERSIBLE TREND. Incumbents ignore the threat at their peril. "We never underestimate competitors," says Steve Pusey, the president for Europe, Middle East, and Africa at Canadian communications equipment giant Nortel Networks.
To become serious global contenders, though, Huawei and ZTE will indeed have to move beyond low-cost versions of Western gear. And both say that's just where they're headed. Huawei spends 14% of revenues on research and development, while ZTE's figure is about 10%. But that's a much smaller amount that the established crowd. Throughout the telecom downturn, Nortel, for one, kept R&D spending high on cutting-edge technologies such as Internet-based switches, even as it trimmed back on mature projects. "Technology innovation is what will keep us ahead," says Nortel's Pusey.
That's fine for high-end gear. But the relentless tendency to commoditization -- even for complex stuff like telecom and Internet equipment -- is irreversible. Recognizing this, outfits like Lucent, Alcatel, and Ericsson have all started pushing more into the business of high-margin services and consulting, rather than relying solely on selling boxes.
COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION? Alcatel has made it clear that it's willing to install and service equipment from any vendor if customers insist. Could that someday include Huawei boxes? Alcatel CTO Ransom concedes it might, if the Huawei product doesn't compete with a strategically important Alcatel offering.
Here's a scenario sure to ruffle some feathers: While the old telecom giants continuing moving up into services and other "knowledge-based" businesses, companies like Huawei and ZTE could grab a growing share of the global communications-equipment market. It seems far-fetched, but perhaps by the time of the next Telecom show in 2006 or 2007, Lucent will once again have a booth -- highlighting its transformation into the world's largest distributor and integrator of Hauwei boxes. Anybody want to place a bet?
CLECs, ILECS stand united against VoIP providers
Glenn Bischoff
October 17, 2003
There are certain things you never expect to see. In Chicago, where I live, no one expects to see one of our local teams in the World Series (this is especially true after what occurred this week). In Boston, the locals know their beloved Red Sox will never get past the hated Yankees--a truism that was hammered home painfully once again last night.
In the telecom industry, one knows that competitive and incumbent carriers never will agree on anything. Yet over the past two weeks, we have learned of their mutual distaste for voice-over-IP providers. At last week's Competitive Telecommunications Association conference in Orlando, George Ford, chief economist for Z-Tel Communications, maligned VoIP providers as "the ultimate free riders."
This week, at the U.S. Telecom Association's conference in Las Vegas, Margaret Greene, president of regulatory affairs for BellSouth, criticized the FCC for failing to recognize the threat VoIP presents not only to the financial stability of the ILECs, but also to the future of the Universal Service Fund. She too questioned why VoIP providers would be allowed to operate "for free." (See the Q&A below for more from Greene.)
Last week I wrote that regulators should start to regulate based on the service rather than the transmission platform. This week, Christopher Libertelli, senior legal advisor to FCC Chairman Michael Powell, suggested the commission would do exactly the opposite with VoIP, if it did anything at all. Libertelli said it was possible that should VoIP regulation emerge, it would come in "different flavors" based on how the service is provided (see story below). Libertelli said the FCC likely would open a proceeding on the matter near the end of the year.
Regardless of how this turns out, it is refreshing to see CLECs and ILECs standing together on an issue, after watching them try to rip out each other's throats in the months leading up to the FCC's Triennial Review order. The unthinkable has happened. Maybe there is hope after all for baseball fans in Chicago and Boston
Physicists smash Internet speed record
[ was it coupled with a Rim chip? ]
Last Updated Fri, 17 Oct 2003 12:17:53
GENEVA - Researchers have more than doubled the world speed record for Internet data transfer.
Scientists at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Switzerland sent the equivalent of a full-length DVD movie in about seven seconds.
Colleagues at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) received the data.
The land record was set on Oct. 1 by transferring 1.1 terabytes of data over a 7,000-kilometre link in less than 30 minutes, the team said.
The average transfer rate was 5.44 gigabits per second (Gbps), which broke the previous record of 2.38 Gbps – more than 20,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection.
Researchers announced the record on Thursday at the Internet2 conference in Indianapolis.
Scientists want to transfer data more quickly for several experiments, such as simulations of the Big Bang.
"This new record marks another major milestone towards our final goal of abolishing distances and, in so doing, to enable more efficient worldwide scientific collaboration," said Oliver Martin in a release.
Martin is head of external networking at CERN.
To accomplish the feat, the team paid for a special transatlantic fibre optic link with a capacity of 10 Gbps.
Routers at both ends allowed the data to be sent more reliably.
Written by CBC News Online staff
Just a reminder to us all, including me! lol
34Simmons
'WHP03' Is this article you posted exciting or what?
All those dead weight jobs lost around the World thanks to progress or will some of these displaced workers be installing our little chip from the curb.
Cox high speed cable yields 2.5 megabits per second [Mbps] in the middle of the night and is very fast so for me it is hard to invision greater speeds.
I am not "up to speed" as the expression goes, so I feel unfamiliar with where Rim sits in these specifications / speeds. Could you help with your insight on our projected speeds and distances as they relate to the article posted below and Rim.
tia
34Simmons
Lions Gate bids for Artisan by Richard Morgan
Updated 06:16 PM EST, Oct-10-2003
TOP DEAL HEADLINES
Bidders for Artisan Entertainment Inc. crossed the finish line last week without a publicly designated winner but with plenty of smart money and Wall Street money still backing Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.
A source confirmed Friday, Oct. 10, that Lions Gate did make Artisan's Oct. 9 deadline for final and binding bids with an offer placed at or near $150 million plus the assumption of an estimated $85 million in debt.
Lions Gate was also said to have rounded up debt financing from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
The developments were not lost on close observers who, after concocting their own connect-the-dots scenarios, sent speculation of Lions Gate emerging as front-runner into overdrive. Never mind that Toronto-based Lions Gate's interest in Artisan, the Santa-Monica, Calif.-based studio behind indie blockbuster "The Blair Witch Project," has been known for years.
On Oct. 7, just two days before binding offers for Artisan were due to auction managers Allen & Co. and Harris Williams & Co., Lions Gate disclosed in a regulatory filing that "in the near future, we may make an offer to make this significant acquisition." Then, on the Thursday that the bids were due, Lions Gate priced a stock offering for 25 million additional common shares.
The per-share price of $2.70 for the offering lead-managed by SG Cowen Securities (Natexis Bleichroeder and Thomas Weisel Partners are serving as co-managers) promise to fatten Lions Gate coffers by $67.5 million in gross proceeds.
Some close to the auction considered the capital influx just enough — once coupled with the borrowing capacity permitted by the $100 million in cash and receivables Lions Gate reported for the most recent quarter — to emerge the winner.
That J.P. Morgan was identified as permitting the borrowing furthered notions of a Lions Gate success. The same bank, after all, had provided Artisan a $200 million credit line after the studio abandoned plans for an initial public offering in September 2001.
Almost as soon as its line was in place, and after rejecting a $250 million offer from USA Networks Inc. in 2000, Artisan first tested the waters about a sale. But nobody came near meeting its $300 million floor, thereby forcing another retreat.
Since then, Artisan has been whacking away at a debt load estimated to have been $270 million. Then, with debt reduced to a manageable $90 million in March, it conducted another auction that elicited more than 20 offers.
Of those offers, one submitted by former USA Films executive Scott Greenstein and backed by Thomas H. Lee & Co. was given serious consideration. Protracted maneuvering, however, eventually caused Artisan to abandon negotiations.
But that's not to say Greenstein has stayed away. On Oct. 10, the Hollywood Reporter maintained that Greenstein had teamed up with former Paramount Pictures chief Stanley Jaffe some weeks ago to offer between $140 million and $150 million, plus the assumption of debt, indicating a total not all that different from Lions Gate's.
John Josephson, a former Artisan director and the Allen & Co. managing director handling the auction, did not return calls for comment. Neither did Todd Morris, who was designated the auction's point man for Harris Williams.
Artisan also declined comment, as did Lions Gate.
Boy is it good we have the PP!
August 10, 2000
New Visual Entertainment, Inc. Adopts Shareholder Rights Plan
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 10, 2000--New Visual Entertainment, Inc. (OTCBB:NVEI - news), a pioneer in the development of proprietary transmission technology focused on delivering the ultimate ``last mile'' solution, today announced that its Board of Directors has adopted a shareholder rights plan in which one Right will be distributed on August 21, 2000 as a dividend on each outstanding share of the Company's Common Stock.
Ray Willenberg, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of New Visual, stated ``The Rights are designed to allow all of our shareholders to realize the long-term value of their investment in the Company by encouraging any prospective buyer to negotiate with the New Visual Board of Directors. The Rights will not restrict consideration by the Board of any acquisition offer on terms favorable to all shareholders.'' Mr. Willenberg explained that the Board adopted the plan to guard against possible coercive or unfair takeover tactics and to prevent any potential acquirer from gaining control of the Company without offering a fair price to all of the Company's shareholders. ``The adoption of the Rights Plan is an expression of our confidence in our Company's future and the Board's determination that all of our shareholders be given every opportunity to participate fully in that future,'' added Mr. Willenberg.
Each Right will entitle the New Visual shareholders to purchase 1/1000th of a share of a new series of junior participating preferred stock of the Company at an exercise price of $200 per Right. The Rights will be exercisable only if another person (an ``Acquiring Person'') acquires or announces its intention to acquire beneficial ownership of 20% or more of New Visual's Common Stock. After any such acquisition or announcement, the Company's shareholders, other than the acquirer, could then exercise each right they hold (i.e. one right per share of common stock) to purchase the Company's Common Stock at a 50-percent discount from the market price. For example, if, at the time of the acquisition, the Company's Common Stock were to have a market value per share equal to $100, the holder of each right, other than the acquirer, would be entitled to receive four (4) shares of the Company's stock for $200.
In addition, if, after another person becomes an Acquiring Person, New Visual is involved in a merger or other business combination in which it is not the surviving corporation, each Right will entitle its holder to purchase a number of shares of common stock of the acquiring company having a market value equal to twice the exercise price of the Right For example, if, at the time of the acquisition, the acquiring company's common stock had a market value of $100, the holder of each right would be entitled to receive four (4) shares of the acquiring company's common stock for $200. Prior to the acquisition by a person or group of beneficial ownership of 20% or more of the Company's Common Stock, at the option of the Board of Directors, the Rights are redeemable for $.001 per Right.
The dividend distribution will be made on August 21, 2000, payable to shareholders of record on that date. The rights will expire on August 21, 2004.
About New Visual Corporation
Based in San Diego, New Visual is a late-development-stage fabless communications semiconductor company. It is developing an advanced technology that allows data to be transmitted at greater speed and across extended distances over existing copper wire. For more information, visit www.newvisual.com.
With the exception of historical information contained in this press release, this press release includes forward-looking statements made under the "Safe Harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including but not limited to the following: product development difficulties; market demand and acceptance of products; the impact of changing economic conditions; business conditions in the Internet and telecommunications industries; reliance on third parties, including potential suppliers, licensors, and licensees; the impact of competitors and their products; risks concerning future technology; and other factors detailed in this press release and in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:
Brad Ketch
619-692-0333
info@newvisual.com
Rim may be here!
Frontier will offer cable TV to ward off competition
Copyright 2003 McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.
Sacramento Bee
October 9, 2003, Thursday METRO FINAL EDITION
Hoping to head off inroads by new competitors, Elk Grove telephone provider Frontier said Wednesday it plans to offer cable television service to its customers.
The company, a unit of Connecticut-based Citizens Communications, declined to say when it would launch the service.
Frontier will stream television programming over its existing phone network, said Frontier spokesman Lare Garcia. "Most of the architecture already is in place," he said.
When it turns on its service, Frontier will be competing with Comcast, which already serves the area with video and Internet services. SureWest Broadband, based in Roseville, is expected to begin operating in Elk Grove in mid-2004 with a combination of cable television, telephone and high-speed Internet service.
The SureWest offering could provide the greatest threat to Frontier by bundling telephone service with its video and Internet connections.
With three cable providers fighting for customers, Elk Grove would have one of the most competitive cable markets in the nation, said Richard Esposto, executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission.
Microsoft makes move into IPTV
Jeff Baumgartner, CED
Marking a development that could weave its way into cable's eventual plunge into an all-digital world, Microsoft TV unveiled an IP-based television platform for both cable and telecommunication service providers.
"We're trying to make it easier and more efficient for these operators to deploy pay-TV services over their broadband networks," said Laura Norman, senior marketing manager for Microsoft TV. Cable's move into IP-based video "might be a longer-term proposition, but it will offer more efficiencies [if they leverage] a unified network."
Microsoft's IPTV platform will offer features such as instant channel changing, interactive/multimedia program guides, picture-in-picture capabilities and support for high-definition television programming and video-on-demand applications.
The platform's PIP element is capable of supporting up to six full-motion video thumbnails, Norman said.
Not surprisingly, the platform will be powered by Microsoft's proprietary Windows Media 9 Series media compression system and run on set-top boxes that use "Windows Embedded" operating systems and the software company's digital rights management technology.
Microsoft plans to demonstrate a prototype of the solution this weekend at the ITU Telecom World confab in Geneva.
Though the platform is also designed for cable infrastructures, two DSL service providers -- Bell Canada and India's Reliance Infocomm Ltd. -- are the first to commit to testing Microsoft's new IPTV platform.
Bell Canada plans to populate the trial with digital programming from its Bell ExpressVu satellite TV service.
"This is part of our overall video strategy to find more ways to deliver Bell ExpressVue digital programming services to customers on their terms, whether through satellite or wire line," said Bell Canada Group President of Systems and Technology Eugene Roman, in a statement.
Microsoft TV said it would later be ready to discuss the nature of the trials in more detail, including the timing and the technology that will be used. A company spokeswoman said the platform should be ready for trial and deployment by the second half of 2004.
Still, Microsoft TV has already managed to land some third-party vendor support from Harmonic Inc. and Tandberg Television, Juniper Networks and Intel Corp. Set-top makers Pace Micro Technology and Thomson have also joined the cause.
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[[ Is our Company embedded within ? }}
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Rim Semi will be announcing in my lifetime, so why not just wait this out while Brad gets us born.
U.S. Chip Companies' Results To Benefit From Better Demand
By DONNA FUSCALDO Dow Jones Newswires
NEW YORK -- Thanks in part to low inventory levels and rising average selling prices, many U.S. semiconductor companies are expected to post improved third-quarter results when they start reporting earnings next week.
The seasonally strong September quarter brought good news to chip investors when Intel Corp. preannounced on the upside twice during the quarter and Texas Instruments Inc. narrowed its third-quarter revenue guidance into the top end of its range.
Fueled by increased sales of laptop computers, better-than-expected telephone handset growth and an improvement in the telecommunications sector, analysts said the third-quarter's strength will likely carry into the fourth quarter.
"The third quarter was indeed a strong quarter for the semiconductor industry and we expect that fundamentals for the fourth quarter will remain strong," said First Albany analyst Auguste Richard in a recent research report.
While the analyst acknowledged that semiconductor stocks have been enjoying lofty valuations, he said they are justified because the chip sector should continue to move higher as economic conditions improve.
In the case of chip giant Intel, analysts said the company will likely meet or even beat the Thomson First Call consensus, which stands at earnings of 23 cents a share and sales of $7.7 billion. In the year-ago third quarter, Intel reported earnings of 11 cents a share and sales of $6.5 billion.
Joseph Osha, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said Intel's preannouncements lead him to believe the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker will also have a good fourth quarter.
"We think that visibility through the third quarter and into the fourth has to be good in order to support the upbeat outlook from Intel's always-conservative financial team," wrote Mr. Osha in a research report.
According to the analyst, Intel is not only benefiting from the launch of its wireless chip, Centrino, but also from better pricing and advanced manufacturing technology which has improved margins. Mr. Osha expects Intel's microprocessor business to grow 14% sequentially in the third quarter and for its communications and wireless units to also grow quarter over quarter. Intel is slated to report third-quarter results on Oct. 14.
Mr. Osha is looking for Intel to post third-quarter earnings of 23 cents a share and sales of $7.7 billion. For the fourth quarter, the analyst has Intel weighing in with sales of $8.2 billion and earnings of 27 cents. The consensus for the fourth quarter stands at earnings of 26 cents a share and sales of $8.3 billion.
Intel's archrival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., is also expected to report results in line with expectations, but analysts said strength will largely come from AMD's flash memory business and not its microprocessor unit.
"We believe that the AMD Athlon XP processor, which is positioned against Intel's low-end Celeron, is losing share," wrote Thomas Thornhill, an analyst at UBS in a recent research report. He is forecasting microprocessor growth of 4% sequentially for AMD in the third quarter, which is starkly lower than his target of 15% growth for Intel. The analyst does expect AMD's flash sales to increase 13% to 15% in the third quarter.
Mr. Thornhill has AMD weighing in with a third-quarter loss of 34 cents a share and sales of $894 million. Analysts, according to First Call, expect AMD to lose 37 cents a share and post sales of $858.6 million. In the year-ago third quarter, AMD reported a loss of 74 cents a share and sales of $508.2 million. AMD will provide Wall Street with its financial results on Oct. 16.
Looking out to the fourth quarter, which is one of the strongest three-month periods for personal-computer chip makers because of the holiday selling season, Mr. Thornhill is calling for sequential sales growth of 8%, which is based on microprocessor growth of 6% and flash memory chip growth of 10%.
During the third quarter, PC chip companies weren't the only ones to enjoy some strength. The cellular-telephone chip market also saw increased demand, in large part because the amount of chips used in cellphones has increased rapidly. One of the companies that stands to benefit from an improving handset market is Texas Instruments, which has a large exposure to that segment.
While the Dallas semiconductor company also makes chips used in consumer electronics and PCs, Merrill's Mr. Osha said the company's optimism about the third quarter comes largely from the wireless market.
Earlier in the quarter, Texas Instruments narrowed the company's revenue range for the September quarter to between $2.39 billion to $2.49 billion, citing better-than-expected demand in the wireless sector.
Mr. Osha said Texas Instruments will likely weigh in with earnings of eight cents a share and sales of $2.45 billion, when it reports earnings on Oct. 20. Analysts, according to First Call, have Texas Instruments reporting earnings of nine cents a share and sales of $2.4 billion. In the year-ago third quarter, Texas Instruments posted earnings of nine cents a share and sales of $2.2 billion.
As for the fourth quarter, Mr. Osha is looking for Texas Instruments to forecast "flat to slightly up" sequential sales and earnings of 11 cents. Analysts are expecting Texas Instruments to have earnings of 11 cents and revenue of $2.48 billion.
The improving handset market is also expected to bode well for analog chip makers such as Linear Technology Corp., which analysts said at the very least will meet expectations.
According to UBS's Mr. Thornhill, new generations of cell phones require more analog chips for such things as power management, enhanced audio and color screens. The analyst expects Linear to report sales of $174.3 million and earnings of 22 cents in its fiscal first quarter. Analysts, according to First Call, have the Milpitas, Calif., chip company earning 21 cents a share on sales of $170 million. In the year-ago first quarter, Linear reported earnings of 17 cents a share and sales of $142 million. Mr. Thornhill noted that Linear's backlog for the December quarter is "building quite well."
While the semiconductor segment performed well during the third quarter, the makers of chip-making equipment weren't so lucky. Despite a hefty surge in chip equipment stock prices in recent weeks, analysts expect order growth in the third quarter to be subdued.
"We believe that the capital intensity of the industry is declining," said First Albany's Mr. Richard. "Process transitions are increasingly expensive and complex and few companies are opting to move to the next-generation process node quickly."
Couple that with chip makers teaming up to share the burden, and Mr. Richard said the percentage of capital spending on semiconductor equipment will eventually decline. For the third quarter, Mr. Richard is calling for orders for the industry to increase 10% sequentially.
In the case of chip equipment leader Applied Materials Inc., which closes its quarter in October, Mr. Richard expects earnings of five cents a share on sales of $1.1 billion, in line with the First Call consensus. In the year-ago period, Applied Materials reported earnings of nine cents a share and sales of $1.4 billion.
While some companies would be hurt by a shift in demand to Japan and Taiwan, Mr. Richard said it bodes well for Applied Materials because of its exposure in those regions. Mr. Richard is calling for a sequential increase in orders of 10% to 15% in its October quarter.
None of the analysts own shares of the chip companies mentioned in this article, but UBS and Merrill intend to seek investment banking relationships with chip makers.
Write to Donna Fuscaldo at donna.fuscaldo@dowjones.com
Kenecom.....Lets amble over to the Venetian and check out the conference.
34Simmons
I hope Management plans on being here for The USTA show which continues to grow.
Last year the show in Boca Raton, Fla., drew about 1,000 attendees and 120 exhibitors.
This year, about 2,000 attendees and 160 exhibitors are expected at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. The show, Oct. 11-15, will feature Daley's speech (President of SBC),
the FTTP session and other exhibits, speeches and panels.
NCTA Vows to Appeal Broadband-Access Ruling
By Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/8/2003 11:00:00 AM
Abstract: The cable industry is lashing out at a court decision Monday that would force cable companies to open their high-speed Internet platforms to competing Web-service providers.
Artisan.....Final takeover bids due tomorrow. Maybe the winner will advertise more and ramp our SIL into the Christmas holidays.
34Simmons
Just a reminder!
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 7:39 PM
Subject: NVEI tech paper from website just released
A Technology Briefing for Shareholders
Using Embarq™ in Last-Mile Ethernet Applications
Here at New Visual, we have been accustomed to explaining the use of the Embarq™ family
of transport processors as an extension of the existing copper wireline outside plant. From
that point-of-view, the reason that a customer would buy Embarq™ is that it allows the
customer to get much more mileage out of his physical plant. But there is another way to
look at how Embarq™ is used, and that is from the point of view of the end user – a point
of view that looks back at the network from his desktop, phone or television set.
The Problem
Many of the shareholders who are reading this Technology Briefing are reading it on a PC
that is hooked to the Internet through their business’s local area network (LAN). The LAN
is used to send emails, surf the web, and put files on the servers of the company. LANs use
a set of rules, called protocols, for moving all of this data around. The protocol that
companies use inside their business is usually Ethernet. Ethernet is inexpensive, stable and
so widely deployed that it is available in virtually every server, router, hub, personal
computer and even now, telephone.
The protocol that the telephone companies use is time division multiplexing (TDM). Also
an inexpensive, stable and widely deployed method of moving bits around, TDM is found in
virtually every telephone, modem, CSU/DSU, channel bank, digital loop carrier, fiber
terminal, and switch. But, like a round peg in a square hole, Ethernet-based traffic does not
readily fit in a TDM-based network. Perhaps an even more vivid word picture would be that
period in European history when the trains of one country, with one gauge, could not travel
into another country because it had a different gauge. The inability of the TDM network to
easily handle Ethernet traffic is causing businesses and homes to spend more on data
communications than they would otherwise have to.
Searching for Answers
The worldwide telephone industry thinks that this is an important problem to solve. Almost
all of the telephone company engineers and planners now believe that ultimately the
telephone network will have to learn to speak Ethernet. They believe – and we at Rim
Semiconductor do, too – that a conversion to Ethernet networks is practically inevitable.
There are some powerful market forces that are driving this conversion.
The rise of business data: Years ago, businesses had little reason to share
data in digital form with other businesses. This has, of course, changed
dramatically. This Technology Briefing that you are holding in your hand
is evidence on that.
The rise of home data: Trailing only slightly behind the demand for
business data is the dramatic rise of home data. Anyone with teenagers
who do online gaming will tell you that whatever speed is coming into their
home, it is just not fast enough!
The conversion to IP telephony: Happening right now, telephone
handsets are converting our telephone calls to the Ethernet format – also
known in this case as internet protocol, or IP – and carrying our calls
across the data network. If this trend continues, Ethernet traffic will
grow even faster than it is today.
Video over Ethernet: And this is the Big One. Already underway in Asia,
video over Ethernet will swamp the capabilities of the public data
network. A half hour of TV is the equivalent of a year and a half of
emails.
So, telco engineers have put the problem this way: how can the vendors (like Rim) help
retrofit the TDM network for Ethernet traffic? For a while in the late 90’s, fiber was going
to be the answer. Despite the great promises made by telcos, though, fiber has just not
penetrated close enough to everyone’s desktop or TV to make a difference. Telcos are now
left scratching their heads, wondering just how they are going to help the LAN work with
the wide area network (WAN). They know that within the metropolitan areas of the world’s
large cities, a WAN architecture must exist to help them offer LAN-type services. But how?
“Embarqing” on the Net
Embarq™ will solve this problem. The semiconductor just moves so fast, it can emulate the
LAN, but across long distances. Platform providers (the makers of the digital loop carriers,
switches, routers, CSU/DSU’s, DSLAMs, etc) also have this “need for speed”, and tell us
that with Embarq™, they can take their existing platforms, and speed them up.
What will happen is that an equipment maker whose edge aggregation device serves metroarea
Ethernet will be able to retrofit its line card with Embarq™. When telcos use this
Embarq™-enabled device to serve Ethernet services, businesses will be able to ship their
LAN traffic anywhere in the world in its native protocol. In other words, to the LAN, the
WAN will look just like any other Ethernet network. This is much more efficient and costeffective,
and businesses will certainly be willing to pay for this service.
Metro-area Ethernet services are just now starting to take off. All of the major carriers have
announced that they have or will soon have tariffed service offerings, and many of the
upstart CLEC carriers already offer them. Internationally, Ethernet services are more
common. There is little doubt that the momentum towards this conversion to Ethernet is
slowly building to be something truly revolutionary.
By enabling the shift from TDM to Ethernet networks, Embarq™ stands at the crossroads
at just the right time. We are confident that Embarq™ will offer the right answer for the
world’s “need for speed”!
The following article was found about mood changes in the market and imho also applies to current thinking about Management of Corporations.
-----------------------------------------------------
"The conventional perspective contends that leaders’ actions cause changes in social mood.
Socionomists explain that changes in social mood cause changes in the perception of leaders. Conventional analysts claim that leaders deserve all the credit for prosperity and all the blame for adversity. Socionomists explain that the mood changes behind prosperity and adversity deserve all the credit for the perceived value of leaders.
Socionomists Predicted This Radical Political Change
In forecasting the current bear market, Conquer the Crash (page 235) foreshadowed this belligerent political climate:
“…when the stock market is rising, reflecting a positive social-mood trend, voters tend to maintain the incumbent leader. When stocks collapse, the leader is thrown out in a landslide or by other means; though the instances are rare, there are no exceptions to this rule. Voters do not appear to care which party is in power at such times; they just throw whomever they perceive to be in charge, and his party, out of power.”
Californians are not new to expressing their anger in bear markets by engaging in radical political social action. When do you think it happened before? Answer: in 1978, near the end of a 16-year bear market in inflation-adjusted stock prices. The Times reminds us, “…voters, in a grass-roots revolt, overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, slashing property taxes.” This social action was considered a “political earthquake” that spread throughout the country, as nearly half the states incited similar uprisings against state and local tax laws over the next five years. (See Stephen Moore, “Proposition 13 Then, Now and Forever,” Cato Institute, July 30, 1998.)
There was a rally recently to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Proposition 13. One of the leaders of the rally and a likely candidate for Gov. Gray Davis’ job was Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Times poetically alerts us, “Another huge California quake could be about to hit.” The true quake has already occurred: the 50 percent drop in stock prices and the collapse in social mood that that drop reflects. The social actions that result are simply like buildings collapsing in response.
The longer the bear market persists, the greater and broader will be voters’ rejection of the status quo, throughout the country and throughout the world."
Well the State of New York hands out money for just about anything and Albany is up State. Is that who it is?
34Simmons
City of Industry, CA (financialnewsusa.com) -- Integrity Securities, Chairman and CEO Matthew Marcus Appeals to Alan Greenspan in defense of the Integrity of the United States OTC Bulletin Board Exchange.
Mr. Marcus stated, "DTC is a Branch of the Federal Reserve and is required by U.S. Law to abide by Federal Reserve rules as a depository. On behalf of all OTCBB issuers and participants I kindly request written clarification of the Federal Reserve's position on DTC's policies on "Naked Shorting" and immediate resolution to the most controversial financial issue facing America since the Adelphia, Enron, and WorldCom scandals. The DTC has no authority to establish 'Certificate Issuer Only' guidelines and based on legal opinions could contravene Federal Depository rules in any attempt to block the withdrawal of OTCBB companies fighting naked shorting abuses from its system."
Marcus continued, "Small Publicly Traded companies are the bread and butter of America and are literally being destroyed by monetary terrorists in refuge behind the veil of offshore accounts in foreign countries manipulating the U.S. securities settlement system. The time has come for the leadership in this country to address the inherent flaws of DTC and NSCC which are crushing the valuation of American Small Business and the ability to raise capital and survive. I strongly urge Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to make a statement on the Federal Reserves position to clarify and or revisit its strategy to defend American Business against foreign predators".
Integrity specializes in OTC market analysis and strategies which curb short selling activity. Integrity Securities is a NASD licensed Registered Investment Advisor and member of Synergy Investments clearing through Pershing, a division of the Bank of New York. Integrity specializes in providing financial services to institutional OTCBB clients including FreeStar, Sionix Corporation (OTCBB: SINX), Delta Capital (OTCBB: DCTN), and Growth Management (OTCBB: GPMT). Mr. Marcus was recently presented with the Magellan award for excellence in Financial Communications by, the Los Angeles Communications professionals (www.lacp.com).
Mr. Greenspan may contact Mr. Marcus at Integrity Securities at Tel: +1 626 961 5694 or Email: info@integritysecurities.com to discuss.
A newswire by Dow Jones Reporter Carol Remond issued Wednesday, January 29, 2003 suggests Remond's newswire Friday, January 24, 2003 claims that actions of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) to move to a "paperless" electronic transfer system for securities has led to the DTC (a subsidiary of DTCC) refusing any exit by a public company seeking to remove stocks from the global electronic system in favor of the physical delivery of share certificates.
According to Marcus Johnson, a spokesman for the OTC Bulletin Board companies, "Our legal research indicates that DTC's reliance upon UCC Article 8 (law governing share transfers) is misplaced and provides insufficient legal authority to prevent a public company from removing its securities from the DTC system. The primary reason is that the DTC, as a branch of the Federal Reserve, is required to abide by Fed rules as a depository. One of the rules states that DTC cannot hold shares that bear any sort of restriction. Refusing to exit securities and continuing to hold them in the name of their nominee could potentially represent a violation of Federal Reserve rules, as well as perpetuating and possibly facilitating naked short selling."
Naked Short Selling is not legal, according to US SEC rules. Naked short selling takes place where shares sold are never borrowed, never delivered by the seller, but nevertheless the seller collects money for the stock not delivered within the three days prescribed by NASD guidelines. The three-day settlement system run by the National Securities Clearing Corporation ("NSCC") does not ensure that shares that are sold in a transaction are ever delivered.
In response to shortfalls of the system and focused attacks by misinformed or unscrupulous parties, an association has been formed by Investor Communications International (ICI) to bring the entire group of OTC Bulletin Board companies together, in a common cause with a common voice. The National Association Against Naked Short Selling was launched in January 2003 and has forwarded a registration and participation letter to all OTC BB companies. The group's mandate is to form a united front against these illegal and unethical abuses, provide information to the Federal Authorities at all levels and begin a national scale public relations campaign for awareness amongst the responsible and independent media and investment industry contacts. The goal is to ensure enforcement of the existing legislation that is intended to safeguard shareholders and the companies they invest in.
Seems like we are all living this now!
I think Brad and Ray are still on track for us all to succeed based once again on impressions given to us 9 months ago!
Is this happening to us @ RIM?
Probably, since for every sell there is a buy..think about it!
The Dachshund and the Leopard
A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dachshund along for company. One day the dachshund started chasing butterflies and before long the dachshund discovered that he was lost.
While wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch. The dachshund thinks,
"Okay, I'm in deep trouble now!"
Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dachshund exclaims loudly,
"Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here?"
Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a look of terror! comes over him, and slinks away into the trees.
"Whew," says the leopard. "That was close. That dachshund nearly had me."
Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes, but the dachshund saw him heading after the leopard with great speed and figured that something must be up.
The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says,
"Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine."
Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks,
"What am I going to do now?"
But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them and just when they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says,
"Where is that monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard."
If you can't out run them, out wit them.
~ Author Unknown ~
How can the vendors (like Rim) help retrofit the TDM network for Ethernet traffic?
Telco's are left scratching their heads wondering just how they are going to help the LAN work with the wide area network (WAN).
They know that within the metropolitan areas of the world’s large cities, a WAN architecture must exist to help them offer LAN-type services and according to Brad Ketch " Embarq will solve this problem".
Please note that Brad did not use words like:
could
perhaps
maybe
soon
we believe
or any other waffling caveats or legal smoke screens.
Embarq™ "will" solve this problem confirms Brad Ketch.
rim, there are over 10,000 investors in NVEI.
Of that amount we are told that 8,500 have 1000 shares or less and many have well in excess of 100,000 shares in each of their accounts we are told.
34Simmons
WHP03$85,000,000 in Artisan debt is probably related indirectly to SIL promotions. lol