Post IPO: What is BigBand's Next Step?

I have blogged on BigBand (BBND) in the past, and after the successful IPO (closing in on $1B market cap today), the question for the BigBand team is: next steps?

Revenues will remain strong for 2007 as they have supplied about 10% of the potential Verizon (VZ) sites with their switched video product. The only concern with Verizon is that BigBand has a single application in a single product silo (e.g. FiOS). It is an excellent product silo in which to have a win and was a key enabler of the IPO, but long term they need to be concerned about competitors. C-Cor recently announced a competitive product to BigBand (i.e. GAMP3) in the switched video market and RGB Networks is a startup competitive funded by KPCB.

A macro issue is that no other major service provider has yet to commit to a switched video architecture. Comcast (CMCSA) and Time-Warner (TWX) have talked about it, but have not adopted it. This means that new revenue prospects for the company’s real strength are limited. It is unlikely that BigBand is a take over target given their narrow product range (i.e. switched video leader, CMTS follower, QAM follower), but they clearly believe/hope that AT&T (T) and other carriers will realize the limitations of the IPTV architecture and adopt a switched video architecture. If this happens, BigBand’s addressable market increases dramatically and would also put BigBand in the sights of several larger companies.

Full Disclosure: I do not own shares of any of the companies mentioned in this post.