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 | http://www.gilder.com/ | Issue 283.0/February 16, 2007

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HEADLINES:

-  The Week / Naisbitt and Gilder on C-SPAN
-  Friday Feature / EZ Answers
-  Friday Blogger Bonus / Kessler: Circular Hedge Fund
-  Readings /


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The Week / Naisbitt and Gilder on C-SPAN’s Book TV

ANNOUNCING:
Saturday, February 17 at 9 pm; Sunday, February 18 at 6 pm and 9 pm 

Book TV presents 
After Words:  John Naisbitt, author of Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking ans See the Future, interviewed by George Gilder, Editor in Chief of Gilder Technology Report

Description: John Naisbitt's first book, Megatrends, predicted future developments in the economy, business, government, technology, and social systems. The book sold nine million copies. In his new book, "Mind Set!," Mr. Naisbitt explains the mind sets that help him make sense of the world and anticipate trends. Mr. Naisbitt is interviewed by fellow forecaster George Gilder, Editor in Chief of Gilder Technology Report.

Author Bio: John Naisbitt is the author of several books, including Megatrends and two books he co-authored with Patricia Aburdene -- Megatrends 2000 and Reinventing the Corporation. Mr. Naisbitt was Assistant Secretary of Education to President John F. Kennedy and Special Assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. He is a former executive with IBM and Eastman Kodak. George Gilder is Editor in Chief of Gilder Technology Report and a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, where he directs the program on high technology and public policy. His books include Wealth and Poverty, Microcosm, and The Silicon Eye. He was a speechwriter for Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, and Richard Nixon.

Learn more:
http://www.booktv.org/feature/index.asp?segID=7963&schedID=476

Order Naisbitt’s book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061136883/gilderpublish-20

Outpacing the Market for Over 10 Years…

By filtering through the Wall Street noise, George Gilder has made a small fortune for his Gilder Technology Report readers, bolstering subscriber investment portfolios for over a decade. In 2006 alone, Gilder’s network processor technology favorite, EZchip, earned subscribers gains of 175% and all-optical network pioneer Broadwing (acquired by Level 3) achieved 159% returns.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE GTR TODAY & DOWNLOAD THE FEBRUARY 2007 Report.
(Numbers based on performance data analyzed independently on www.gtindex.com.)    


Friday Feature
/ EZ Answers

GTR Tech Analyst Charlie Burger on http://www.gildertech.com/board/ (2/15/07): 
It’s show time for EZchip (LNOP). The network processor (NPU) guru has begun its initial revenue ramp on the back of sales of NP-2s to Juniper (JNPR) that should continue through this year, followed by sales of NP-3s to Cisco (CSCO) and Juniper beginning next year. The company also took a step closer to “going” public when, late last year, LanOptics increased its ownership of EZchip from 60% to 78% by issuing LanOptics shares to several EZ shareholders in exchange for their shares of EZchip. Publicly traded LanOptics (LNOP) plans to acquire total ownership of EZchip through similar exchanges with the two remaining EZ shareholders as soon as they are ready to cash out.

With the props set and actors ready, CEO Eli Fruchter now needs to lift the curtain. Look for an investor road show sometime this year followed by the initiation of quarterly conference calls. What’s Eli going to tell all these skeptical investors?

For one, that he intends to hold operational expenses near the current run-rate of $13m per year, even as the company grows. One way he saves is by educating his customers. In addition to supporting internal research, EZ engineers help customers design their own products. Significant support can be required for the first design, which can take up to two years, but support for subsequent designs trends toward zero by the fourth or fifth design. Hence, as veteran customers become EZ experts, Eli can shift engineers to new customers and avoid hiring more engineers….
 

To read Charlie’s complete February 15 EZchip (LNOP) analysis and his answers to the below questions, visit the Gilder Technology Report subscriber-only message board by subscribing today at www.Gildertech.com.  

Q:
How much cash on the balance sheet is available to EZ and how much still resides with LNOP?
Q: Why is Cisco ("the second CESR vendor" of the press release) not using NP-2s?
Q: Is the NP-3 sampling?
 
Q. Is Juniper also designing with NP-3?  
Q. Is EZ in wireless backhaul like Wintegra?


The Telecosm Lounge

The Gilder Technology Report’s exclusive subscriber-only “Telecosm Lounge” message board is visited daily by hundreds of investors, engineers, money managers, and tech enthusiasts, including George Gilder and the GTR analysts and editors.

Log on today to find out what you’ve been missing:
http://www.gildertech.com/board/


Friday Blogger Bonus / Circular Hedge Fund

 

Andy Kessler in the Wall Street Journal (2/7/07): I’m thinking of starting a hedge fund that only invests in the stocks of other hedge funds. Who’s in?

 

Most people think of hedge funds as secretive pools run by a bunch of cowboy traders shooting for the moon. Think again. Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund managing $26 billion, is about to go public and raise over $600 million. This ain’t Pets.com. Hedge funds are money machines, keeping 20% or more of investment profits: Fortress made $240 million last year. So why go public? Perhaps to distribute earnings as tax-advantaged dividends, or maybe, like the rest of Wall Street, there’s nothing like stock options to attract talent. Most likely, they want to get a lot bigger fast.

 

The institutionalization of hedge funds has begun and there are trillions of dollars at stake. Either way, think of Lays Potato Chips (or cockroaches, depending on how you feel). You can’t have just one. Goldman Sachs, the lead underwriter for the Fortress deal and the lead source of the Fortress talent pool, is also probably their biggest competitor. Strange, huh?

 

Not really. Wall Street has forever been circular. Remember, there are more mutual funds—over 8,000 of them—charging 1%-2% fees investing in stocks than there are stocks on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ combined. I might as well start another crop circle—a hedge fund buying and shorting other hedge funds (I’ll start with those that fund Hollywood movies). How cool is that? I only wish I had the chance to short failed hedge fund Amaranth.

It seems like a new hedge fund opens every eight seconds. Up from maybe 500 hedge funds in 1990, there are over 7,000 of them today managing over $1 trillion. Crowded? Not yet. The hardest part is raising money, but we’ve come a long way. It’s no longer a Max Bialystock-like hitting up of rich widows; Citadel Investment Group in Chicago has $13 billion in assets and 1,000 employees in six offices worldwide. It turns out they also are one of the largest market makers in options, taking Wall Street on at their own game. Lots of hedge funds make a market in currencies, too, long a profit center for banks. Circular indeed….

 

Read Andy’s complete article:

http://www.andykessler.com/
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Readings /

Kudlow: Bernanke & Goldilocks
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTRiNWRlZDYzZmRjZDQ0ZGEzNzAwODlhY2VjZjI3MjQ=

 

Wesbury: Bernanke Goes To The Hill
http://www.ftportfolios.com/Retail//Research/ViewResearchArticle.aspx?ID=259

 

Karlgaard: Moore’s Law Triumphant
http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0226/033.html

 

The Future Of  Phone And Web Convergence
http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/12/yahoo-google-microsoft-ent-tech-cx_kw_0212wharton.html?partner=telecom_newsletter

 

Data Centers’ Growing Power Demands
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18188/

 

Why Vista’s DRM Is Bad For You
http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/10/microsoft-vista-drm-tech-security-cz_bs_0212vista.html?partner=globalnews_newsletter

 

AMD Faces Cash Crunch And LBO, Says Analyst
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197006371

The Weekly GTI
http://www.gtindex.com/
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FRIDAY LETTER STAFF

Editor: Mary Collins / mcollins@gilder.com

Research: Sandy Fleischmann / sfleischmann@gilder.com

 

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