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To: Jack Hartmann who wrote (144)	8/18/2000 9:26:12 PM
From: D. K. G.	of 404

Finisar Boosts Its Telecom Prospects lightreading.com Optical subsystem vendor Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR) is on a roll. Yesterday, it announced plans to purchase privately held Sensors Unlimited Inc., for roughly $700 million, a move that signals Finisar's full-scale move into the telecom components market. At the same time, it revealed that pro forma earnings will be up 95 percent year to year, beating expectations. Strong signals, surely. But Finisar's also taking a big risk: It's making a bold bid in the optical components market at a time when competition is at a record high. Further, Finisar's got a monkey on its back in the form of a massive patent lawsuit filed last year by rival Methode Electronics Inc. (Nasdaq: METHA) and its subsidiary Stratos Lightwave LLC (Nasdaq: STLW). First, the good news: Finisar's pro forma results show quarterly earnings exceeding $27 million, up 95 percent year to year and 30 percent since last quarter. The company said its optical subsystems, including gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel transceivers and a wave-division multiplexer with a range of 120 kilometers, should account for $22 million of that figure, a rise of 132 percent for the quarter. Gross margins, the company said, will be about 40 percent. The official results are slated for announcement on Tuesday, August 22. Analysts like the preliminary results. "Although we would have liked to see gross margins slightly higher, it was a solid quarter and investors have nothing to complain about," said a report issued by investment bank CIBC World Markets Corp. As to Finisar's $700 million bid for Sensors Unlimited, a company with revenues of about $20 million, that too was greeted positively. Today, Finisar's stock rose on Nasdaq more than three points to 38.5 before noon. And CIBC also backs the buy: "The deal looks accretive from day one," its report states. The price was in the ballpark for such deals, CIBC maintains, and Sensors, whose customers include JDS Uniphase (OTC: JDSU) and Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU), should help Finisar round out its optical telecom pitch. Here's why: Until recently, Finisar specialized in making gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel transceivers. But it's now trying to extend that expertise to cover short-range Sonet networks too. Last week, Finisar made its first big move in this direction with the announcement of a series of short-reach OC48/SDH STM-I16 transceivers. Now, Finisar says, it will be able to offer components not only to makers of datacomm gear but suppliers of short-range optical switches and routers for metro-area service providers. By purchasing Sensors Unlimited, Finisar says it will build on its new strategy. Sensors specializes in making so-called photodetector arrays, or tiny monitors that can track the performance of wavelengths in DWDM (dense wavelength-division multiplexing) gear at rates above 10 Gbit/s. Having these tiny monitors is key to creating multichannel DWDM. Adding the sensors to Finisar's existing components will help Finisar make compelling products for suppliers of metro optical networking gear, Finisar says. Finisar's potential seems bright. But on the downside, it's entering a market that's teeming with competition and combinations, typified by the recent acquisition of NewPort Communications by Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM) (see Broadcom Buys Its Way In ) earlier this month. Then there's the matter of the Methode lawsuit. According to Finisar's 10K report, Methode is seeking $224.3 million plus interest from Finisar, which it claims has violated a number of its patents. Methode reportedly also has a similar suit pending against Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HWP). If it loses this case, Finisar admits, its business could be significantly harmed. Furthermore, to win the case, Finisar intends to prove not that it's innocent of patent violations, but that those patents aren't valid in the first place. But Finisar is optimistic. "The risk factors are there.... We have to do the lawyerly thing and state them. But that said, we view this as more of a nuisance, and we have an extremely strong position in this matter," says Steve Workman, VP of finance and CFO at Finisar. -- Mary Jander, senior editor, Light Reading lightreading.com

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To: D. K. G. who wrote (145)	8/20/2000 5:43:51 PM
From: riposte	of 404

Kevin Landis interview at TheStreet.com: FNSR mention. thestreet.com [SNIP] Kevin Landis: One where we've pretty much finished our buying, that I can talk about it, is Finisar (FNSR:Nasdaq - news). TSC: They took off this week. Kevin Landis: They make the subassemblies. It would seem like making subassemblies is no big deal and that anybody could do it. TSC: I've tried. It's harder than it looks. Kevin Landis: [Laughter] TSC: Seriously, how did you pick Finisar? Kevin Landis: Think of it this way, Finisar's supplier list includes JDSU. Their customer list includes Brocade (BRCD:Nasdaq - news) and Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq - news). TSC: Those are companies that are doing a little business. Kevin Landis: Yes. So Finisar is absolutely in that food chain. Their business is ramping up pretty much as fast as they can manage the growth. So that's pretty nice. They're right in that sweet spot. [REMAINING TEXT DELETED]

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To: Marc who wrote (148)	8/22/2000 10:34:56 PM
From: D. K. G.	of 404

Finisar CC Replay: corporate-ir.net ========== My take, all in all a good Q. Solid revenue growth both sequentially (32%) and Y-o-Y (96%). Net income was also v. strong seq. (42%) and Y-o-Y (220%). FC product up 33% seq. GE up 53% seq. GE represented 13% of total revenues. Major Customers/rev/% EMC 5.8 mill 21% (Flatish Seq, as EMC underordered this Q,scrambling to catch up on orders) Brcd 4.8 18% (Rising fast now #2 Up significantly 149% seq!) Emlx 3.0 11% ALA/NN 2.9 11% Extr } not 10% but both impt. contributors Fdry Opticity - Metropolitan WDM Optical Transport Platform: 400k booked this Q. 3 trials and one order form that, another trial underway. FNSR Expects more wins in this space. CATV - Digital Return Systems: 2+ million booked. CATV equip. OEMs Antc, Secor(sp?) and Mot looking into incorporating. ASPs ~ 750k dependant on configuration. Another CATV equip. OEM has contacted FNSR in this Q. Test Instruments - Growth seen flatish till next PY. Negatives: Margins were weak due to product shift to optical subsystems (81% of total revs). Management has shifted production overseas 20% to 70% at Q's end for cost savings. Next Q could see flatish GMs but improve afterwards, according to CEO. I suspect a round of profit taking will occur based on this, as the stock has run up recently. I could be wrong. The IPO proceeds generated interest income that contributed significantly to the bottom line. Back out the interest income and the EPS do not have the day trading bullet headline grabbing attention of Marc's post. Here's another link to an article on Finisar: theonlineinvestor.com Finisar Optical Networking Sizzles August 18, 2000 - We just wrote about Finisar (Nasdaq:FNSR) in June, yet much has happened in those two months including a 60% jump in the stock price since then. Finisar makes fiber optic subsystems and test systems used in high-speed networking and Storage Area Network (SANs) equipment. The company just announced an acquisition on Wednesday after the close and preannounced better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal first quarter. Finisar said it plans to buy Sensors Unlimited, a private company that makes performance monitoring components used in fiber optic networks. The $730 million deal, mostly FNSR stock, will buy a company with revenues of $15 million and pretax income of $6 million. While the price tag sounds steep (49 times trailing 12-month revenues), that's the state of affairs in fiber optic networking equipment. It's a blistering hot area and companies can use their soaring stock as currency to pay up for acquisitions and build their business. Finisar itself is trading at 70 times trailing revenues. Concurrent with the acquisition announcement, Finisar released preliminary first quarter results. Revenues for the quarter ended July 30 are thought to exceed $27 million, up 95% from a year ago and up over 30% sequentially. Growth continues to be driven by the higher-margin optical subsystems business. Net income is expected to be $0.03 per share, beating the analyst consensus by a penny. Finisar makes optical data links--transmitters, receivers and transceivers--that operate at Gigabit speeds. It also makes optical link extenders and other products designed to increase the performance and reliability of networks. Finisar sells these products to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the networking equipment and fibre channel SAN markets. Customers include EMC, Brocade Communications, Newbridge Networks, Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM and Compaq. Finisar also sells network performance testing systems. Finisar attempts to differentiate its products on performance and reliability but it also does so with value-added features, most notably performance monitoring capabilities achieved via a microprocessor and software built into these subsystems. The company targets four main markets: Gigabit Ethernet for LANs, fibre channel for SANs, cable TV and metro data networks. The first two are already starting to blossom and should soon be multibillion dollar market opportunities. The drive for faster, better networking on the enterprise level is well documented, and the storage networking story has really come of age in the past year. As for cable TV, Finisar products provide return path transport on two-way cable systems. Cable operators are in the early stages of a massive upgrade to their infrastructure, so this market is expected to take off in the next year. Finally, optical loops for metropolitan areas are a very hot topic these days, as the bottleneck in data transmission is increasingly at the interconnect between enterprise networks and Internet backbones. This is also a large market opportunity measured in billions that should start to ramp this year. The fact that Finisar is positioned in front of such massive market opportunities is why investors have given a market cap of $5.6 billion to a company with sales of just $80 million. The company is not only profitable, but well capitalized for additional growth opportunities. Finisar ended last quarter with $321 million in cash, thanks in part to a successful secondary offering in April despite that being in the midst of the tech sector meltdown. To justify its valuation, the company will need to demonstrate rapid progress in capturing the large market opportunities it currently targets. The company hopes to continue its historical growth rate (90% over the past five years) into the next five years, and the preannouncement of 95% growth in the latest quarter indicates they are slightly ahead of schedule. - James Hale ======================

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To: D. K. G. who wrote (149)	8/24/2000 2:40:52 PM
From: 2MAR$	of 404

Finisar Introduces the `Ultimate GBIC' Optical Transceiver Business Editors/High-Tech Writers SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 24, 2000--Finisar Corporation (Nasdaq:FNSR) today announced the introduction of its new Ultimate GBIC, the FTR-8519-3. This gigabit multi-mode optical transceiver is a "smart" device that operates at data rates up to 1.25 Gb/s on both 3.3V and 5.0V power supplies, at temperatures from -10(degree)C to +85(degree)C, and holds power dissipation to less than one watt. This new GBIC transceiver uses Finisar's latest state-of-the-art technology to provide exceptional data integrity and stability. The Ultimate GBIC delivers "beautiful bits" (low jitter eye patterns), exceptionally fast rise/fall times, a broad operating voltage range (3.15V to 5.5V), wide dynamic range (receiver sensitivity of -22.5 dBm is typical), and unusual stability over wide temperature extremes. "We have made several important design improvements to our already successful short-wavelength GBIC transceiver," said Christian Urricariet, Product Marketing Manager for Optical Subsystems. "The result is the new FTR-8519-3 Ultimate GBIC with improved technical performance in a number of important areas. Because of its wide operating parameters, the Ultimate GBIC will reduce the number of part numbers we have to manufacture. This should shorten our lead-times and enable us to provide better support to more customers," he added. The Ultimate GBIC also includes the same high-performance features that have made Finisar's standard GBICs the leader in the industry. Some of these include exceptional performance in the FCC electromagnetic interference compliance tests, extended operating temperature range (-10(degree)C to +85(degree)C), and extremely low power dissipation (less than 1 watt). This "smart" Ultimate GBIC transceiver also provides customers with the unique Finisar built-in optical test, monitoring and reporting system. This system, in addition to the standard GBIC Serial ID, allows switches, hubs, storage arrays, and adapter cards to provide optical test information to their users. Each Ultimate GBIC can automatically report status information on parameters such as laser current, laser temperature and received optical power. This information empowers users to diagnose link or loop optical problems without deploying a service technician. Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is an increasingly important design parameter in new gigabit-rate data communication systems. All Finisar GBIC transceiver modules are built with fully metallic enclosures to ensure superior emission control and FCC test margins. This new gigabit-rate transceiver meets or exceeds the electrical, mechanical and environmental requirements of the Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) Standard. It also complies with all functional requirements in the Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel standards. The Ultimate GBIC is an eye-safe Class 1 device per FDA/CDRH and IEC 825-1 laser safety regulations. Optical transceivers are utilized by networking manufacturers in their switches, hubs, storage arrays, and adapter cards for LAN, SAN and WAN applications to convert gigabit-rate electrical signals to optical signals and vice-versa for transmission over fiber optic cables. ABOUT FINISAR Finisar Corporation (Nasdaq:FNSR) is a leading provider of fiber optic subsystems and network performance test systems which enable high-speed data communications over Gigabit Ethernet local area networks (LANs), Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs), metropolitan data network applications (MANs), and CATV. The Company is focused on the application of digital fiber optics to provide a broad line of high-performance, reliable, value-added optical subsystems for networking and storage equipment manufacturers. The Company's headquarters are located at 1308 Moffett Park Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089. For more information, visit the Company's web site at finisar.com. Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements regarding Finisar Corporation's expectations, beliefs, intentions, or strategies regarding the future. All forward-looking statements included in this document are based upon information available to Finisar Corporation as of the date hereof, and Finisar Corporation assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These and other risks relating to Finisar Corporation's business are set forth in Finisar Corporation's Form 10-K, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 31, 2000, and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. --30--kc/sf* CONTACT: Finisar Corporation Shelby Palmer, 408/542-5050 (Investor Relations) investor.relations@finisar.com Christian Urricariet, 408/548-1000 (Sales) curricariet@finisar.com Website: www.finisar.com KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS HARDWARE NETWORKING TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRODUCT Today's News On The Net - Business Wire's full file on the Internet with Hyperlinks to your home page. URL: businesswire.com *** end of story

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