numinary

The EU Stabs Apple in the Back

from a pure engineering/efficiency standpoint, it seems to make the most sense to try to drag all of the EU countries into using a similar wall plug outlet and electrical power source would provide the largest returns. Does this make too much sense for legislators? Or is it just that this is a more inconvenient issue for them to deal with?

As someone that goes on company junkets around Europe, I would certainly like to see a universal power plug rather than a universal cell phone power cable...

Misleading Statistics for Mobile Internet and Smartphones: Get Rid of the Hype

i was looking forward to reading your debunking of

""LTE will deliver 100Mbit/s speeds""

nothing quite like quoting a maximum speed as typical...

Outsourced Manufacturing Will Have Little Impact on Optical Suppliers' Operating Margins

I understand that investors cannot appreciate the difficulty of manufacturing fiber optics, but I still struggle not to sigh when I read comparisons to the IC industry. This is similar to comparing a NYC hedge fund to a local community bank -- scale is different, customers are different, regulations/standards are different -- but they both deal with money...

Some of this is inherent in the physics of the devices, some of it is inherent in the different market sizes -- 2 orders of magnitude is a big deal...

Vertical integration for optics suppliers can be a key differentiation. It is important for the optics suppliers to understand what technologies matter most to keep in-house. For example, perhaps Finisar feels that their differentiation is at the transceiver manufacturing level so they don't want to let that "know-how" out to competitors thru outsourcing of manufacturing. JDSU might feel that their differentiation is in the fabrication of optical devices and the manufacturing at the transceiver/sub-system level is not unique.

The author seems to lump all of the manufacturing together in one clump and not appreciate that different manufacturing steps have different technological requirements. The manufacturing that is going on at Fabrinet for JDSU does not involve the chip (iii-v semiconductor such as InP) fabrication, but rather PCB manufacturing, and some chip packaging. Finisar keeps it all in-house because they have more high volume products with which to ride out waves in the industry whereas JDSU is more of a telecom play and tends to have more peaks & valleys which correspond to network build-outs.

Please do a little more homework on the industry before posting next time. All the same, I take your comments about the science fair culture to heart and do not deny that some of that is present...

Hewlett-Packard May Not Be on Sound Footing

Kirk,

I totally agree with your statement "I don't see anything wrong with a short writing about why he is short. I find it more valuable than some writer with an "analyst" title at a brokerage creating sales literature to help a brokerage churn accounts to generate commissions."

However, I think it would be useful from an editorial point of view to have the disclosure at the beginning of the article/blog. This is a simple style change that would allow readers to be more informed as they wade through the myriad articles available on stocks.

--numinary

KLA-Tencor Bad Earnings: A Good Reason for Having GAAP

I'm speculating here, but didn't Intel announce that they were shifting the overwhelming bulk of their CapEx to the 32nm process node? Whatever equipment maker is in the lead with the 32nm equipment will take a higher share at Intel & be in the best position to recover as the economy rebounds. I imagine that the either KLA or AMAT has the best 32nm equipment, but I really don't know -- I'm an InP semi guy rather than a CMOS drone.

CIENA and Bookham: A Good Match?

reasons to be cautious on BKHM:
-13.7% operating margin (ttm)
only 50mm in cash with -39mm levered free cash flow (ttm)
major >10% customer is Nortel who is selling off their optical business
major customer is Ciena who pre-announced weak sales

reasons to be bullish on BKHM:
amount of money lost each quarter getting smaller
some interesting product announcements

reasons why a systems company is unlikely to buy an optical company
a) systems companies all spun out their optical subsidiaries pre-bubble or during the telecom bubble
b) premise is to "realize public value" of these businesses
c) additional premise is to allow optical companies to sell to many different system vendors & carriers and therefore address a larger market. if the optical company is in-house then they can typically only sell to the in-house customer and not external
d) Ciena would rather buy from many suppliers than support the R&D for an in-house optics team

In the Cat Bird Seat: A Review of Emcore’s Business

I work in the fiber optics component space. The Intel optics group which EMKR purchased was not a good buy. Intel was not a major player in the market. EMKR was not and remains a peripheral player in the market.

I hope that their solar piece is true, but I have no information in that regard. All I know, is that their fiber optics piece is not a positive addition.

Notables From The PMC-Sierra Q207 Conference Call

Regarding your desire to see someone quantify the bandwidth increase, the best "recent" summary that i've seen is the IEEE material on the need for a higher speed ethernet. a lot of folks really tried to find as much data as possible...

note that none of this has direct bearing on PMCS, but rather on general market trends

Call For Interest Material
www.ieee802.org/3/cfi/...

Market Drivers for 100 Gigabit Ethernet
www.ieee802.org/3/hssg...

Finisar Meets Luxtera at Gilder Telecosm

Regarding Luxtera technology as a panacea for 100G, as noted they currently have some deficiencies such as (a) operate at only 1550nm wavelength, (b) Si modulators have no capability to offer phase control necessary for phase shift keying or other modulation techniques, (c) modulator technology does not offer good extinction ratio for longer distance signal propagation, (d) laser chips must be custom designed to correctly mount to their IC platform. The Luxtera technology is very interesting, but as the entire communications industry revolves around published standards, Luxtera is in a bit of a bind -- their tech does not line up well with any of the existing standards. Luxtera will sell custom interfaces as they try to manipulate their technology and the emerging standards to line up better with one another.

FNSR is in the midst of a squeeze as low cost high volume optical module shops from Asia provide constant pressure, while at the high end they have had little to no success at 10G modules. This is why it is critical for them to continue to invest in 10G and other markets. Of course good companies tend to use challenges such as this as a mechanism to develop new expertise and remain market leaders -- it remains to be seen if FNSR can do this, but they have a better chance than other public optical module companies.