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― THE FRIDAY LETTER ―
(e-mailed weekly, from Gilder Publishing,
for friends and subscribers)
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| http://www.gilder.com/
| Issue 218.0/September 16, 2005
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HEADLINES:
▪
The Week / GTR Message Board: Excerpts & Highlights
▪ Friday Feature /
Hey, Maybe the
Singularity Really IS Near
▪ Friday Bonus / FCC To Probe Katrina Telecom Failures
▪ Readings /
|
GILDER/FORBES TELECOSM 2005: The
Singularity is Here September 26 – 28 | The Resort at Squaw Creek, Lake Tahoe
Telecosm 2005 is sponsored by: Amedia
Networks, Broadwing,
GigaBeam, Microvision, Qualcomm, Tropos Networks, Verizon, and Wyse Technology. |
The Week / Sigma,
Amedia, GigaBeam, and more …
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
The following are excerpts from the Gilder
Technology Report’s subscriber message board.
GTR Subscriber (9/13/05): I
think [Next Inning Technology editor] McWilliams underestimated Sigma's
(SIGM) chances (a very small company) as they went up against the big boys (Broadcom
[BRCM] and STMicroelectronics [STM]).
George Gilder (9/13/05): I am off to the West Coast, where I hope to
interview the Sigma (SIGM) people. In essense, they make
"Mediaprocessors" of the sort I have been touting for ten years,
since I wrote an article in Forbes ASAP about a premature effort by John
Moussouris to coin these chips in gold (literally gold wires) to attain the
needed speeds. Mediaprocessors have to function orders of magnitude faster than
the flows that they handle. To manage and decode a 19 Mbps HDTV stream, for
example, with all the motion estimation and compensation and bloc filtering and
color rendering, takes some 300 giga-ops per second and memory bandwidth of
some 500 giga-ops. In putting all the various video standards on one chip,
Sigma has a chance to achieve a real edge against Broadcom et al. But it will
be a bitter fight.
Next Inning editor, Paul McWilliams (9/13/05): It seems as though there are
those who don't fully understand my position on SIGM. I think there is time for
both short-term profits and to reevaluate the competitive situation when these
profits materialize (I think somewhere in the low to mid-teens). It's very
important for investors to go into a stock like SIGM with this sort of opinion
locked very securely in their mind. Investors who don't do this might not
recognize (believe) a competitive threat and therefore get
"blindsided." Believe me, I know this from experience.
The good news here is that SIGM has enough cult following that will probably be
slow to react to changes in competitive threats. This will probably give
investors who sense such threats more time than usual to adjust to them. The
bad news is I'm not sure SIGM management will recognize the threats when/if (I
really think we could leave this as "when") they occur. There's
something about SIGM management that leads me to believe they are
overconfident, but maybe it's me that doesn't see they have reason to be so.
Something I think that's important to remember with SIGM is that we're dealing
with a company that is trading for only 26% above the 1990 IPO price - until
very recently, it was below this IPO price. In other words, we've seen 15 years
of vision and no returned shareholder value. Again, I've learned the hard way
(several times) that companies like this that have gone through several (many)
cycles of "we're almost there" need to be watched carefully and it's
usually best to have an exit strategy that includes multiple sell points on the
way up even when things continue to look great. I hope this clears up some
confusion.
Subscriber
Question (9/16/05): Other than World Wide Packets being privately held,
how does this company differ from Amedia (AANI.OB)?
GTR’s
Charlie Burger (9/16/05): World Wide Packets is Amedia’s chief competitor. I believe there is
very little difference in the Ethernet over fiber/copper products offered by
each company for access networks. Both can do 100 Mbps symmetrical and at the
right distance eliminate all components between the CO and residence in FTTP
architectures. As George Gilder has pointed out, the main emphasis is fiber,
and VDSL is a stopgap for immediate revenues and a bridge to FTTP. There are a
number of VDSL competitors out there doing 100 Mbps. (To read more about the
company differences, logon to the Telecosm Lounge at http://www.gildertech.com/.)
Subscriber
Question (9/15/05):
I'm in Unova
(UNA). Do you know if [the Impinj news] has negative implications for
their Intermec division?
GTR’s Bret
Swanson (9/16/05): I think
Intermec (UNA), which makes modules and systems, is probably a beneficiary
of Impinj's base RFID technology, though Impinj also has a new line of RFID
readers and others are also using Impinj's tag chips. I don't see Intermec on
Impinj's customer list yet, but they are in Everett, WA, close to Impinj in
Seattle, so I'm sure they are aware of what Chris Diorio and Dr. Mead have
brewing. I see both companies announced new RFID certifications today …
Subscriber Question (9/15/05): What are your thoughts on Gigabeam or
high-frequency, wireless point-to-point in general?
GTR’s
Charlie Burger (9/16/05): Much more promising than Terabeam, I believe. GigaBeam president/CTO
Doug Lockie visited us several weeks ago. Fascinating … Lockie will also be
coming to Telecosm.
To read more
posts by George Gilder and GTR editors and subscribers, log on to the
Telecosm Lounge at http://www.gildertech.com/
today.
|
THE TECH PORTFOLIO THAT GAINED
155.8% IN THE LAST 3 YEARS … |
Friday Feature
/ Hey, Maybe
the Singularity Really IS Near
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend
Biology comes out next week. And I suspect that a lot of people wonder if
things will really happen as fast as Kurzweil suggests. But, as I look at the
news reports, I see quite a few signs that we're living in a future that not
long ago would have looked science fictional. Take, for example, this report:
Miracle Mouse Can Grow Back Limbs (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1754008,00.html).
Limb
regeneration, and custom-grown organs! Sounds good to me. Bring it on!
Meanwhile,
Cambridge University just held the second conference on scientifically
engineered negligible senescence, where people discussed ways of slowing,
halting, or even reversing the aging process.
Read
the Complete Glenn Harlan Reynolds Article: http://www.techcentralstation.com/091405C.html
Related
Reading:
The Singularity Is Near
http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D4848
Ray
Kurzweil: The Instapundit Interview
http://instapundit.com/archives/025289.php
|
TELECOSM AFTER HOURS |
Friday Bonus / FCC To Probe Katrina Telecom
Failures
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
The Federal Communications Commission will meet in Atlanta on Thursday (Sept.
15) to determine how telecommunications networks collapsed in the aftermath of
Hurricance Katrina and to find ways to prevent future failures.
The
agency said it will empanel a broad range of telecom industry executives,
communications workers, broadcasters and industry groups during its monthly
meeting in the Georgia state capital. The FCC seldom holds monthly open
meetings outside of Washington.
Read
the Complete Article: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170703346
Related
Reading:
New Lines of Communication
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR2005091502342.html
A
Katrina Lesson: Need For Unified Emergency Radio System
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/09/ap/ap_091405.asp?trk=nl
WiMax Helps Out In Katrina Recovery
http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA6257453.html?nid=2704&rid=112869806
_______________________________________________
Readings /
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
A China Policy In America's Interest
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4777
China’s Economy Merges with the U.S. in Countless Ways
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/special_packages/12634957.htm
Bush Requests More Aid Funding
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/14/AR2005091402654.html
A “Victory” Over Wasteful
Spending? Hardly
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm839.cfm
Kudlow’s Money Politics
http://www.lkmp.blogspot.com/
Tax Cuts Are Katrina Relief
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/factor200509150857.asp
$4.2 Billion Raised By Google
In 2nd Offer
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12652321.htm
Philadelphia Experiment A Cautionary Tale on WiFi
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/columnists/mike_langberg/12640464.htm
Skype Hunt: How VCs Struck Gold In Europe
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/12652317.htm
Semico Raises IC Forecast For
2005, 2006
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170703664
Samsung Reportedly Seeks To
Cut LCD Investment
http://www.eet.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170703550
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