Nortel held a “teach-in” this morning featuring the unit’s president, Phillippe Morin, which included a discussion about 40G technology. Not sure if the Webcast is being archived or whether the conference call will be made available later.
I was on the teach in. It is pretty technical stuff (and lasted an hour and a half) but for those who want to do a deep dive into what might be an important and/or interesting technology, I can’t recommend it too highly.
My two takeaways are as follows:
1) Nortel really has some kick-ass technology for 40Gig (and eventually 100Gig) optical, both long haul and in the metro. They may have teh kind of lead and proprietary position that allowed them to have 100% 2.5Gig market share for 18 months while the rest of the world tried to catch up.
BUT 2) That 40Gig/100Gig market isn’t here yet and won’t be that big…even by 2010 NT only thinks it will be a couple of billion a year. That’s not nothing — but after optical was a $15 billion business for NT in 1999/2000, talking about $2B doesn’t give investors the same kind of frisson.
Nice to see NT a) be really good at something, b) communicate better with the Street, and c) be able to draw a good crowd (there were lots of good questions.) But this technology shouldn’t change anyone’s 2008 price target for the stock.
Everything You Wanted to Know About….
…Nortel’s metro ethernet business.
Nortel held a “teach-in” this morning featuring the unit’s president, Phillippe Morin, which included a discussion about 40G technology. Not sure if the Webcast is being archived or whether the conference call will be made available later.