TECH TALK By Paul Motter (MF Networx) New York City (April 27, 1997) -- Intel What would you do if you were Andy Grove? The microprocessors you manufacture are so good that most of the peripheral equipment and applications which use them can't take advantage of their full capability. Every once in a while you might get tempted to shake things up a bit. Well, INTEL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: INTC)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: INTC)") end if %> shook up the networking market last week by announcing a drastic reduction in the price of 10/100 megabit hubs.The idea is to create new markets for its core business, the Intel microprocessors, by increasing the prevalence of more powerful ancillary computing equipment. As the demands of networking grow more robust, the need for faster processors grows. The Intel Express 10/100 Stackable Hub will be priced at $99 a port in some configurations -- a price it said was very competitive with traditional 100 Mbps hubs at $150 to $175 a port and the slower 10 Mbps hubs at $70 a port. Intel is also launching the industry's first single chip Fast Ethernet product -- dubbed the Intel 82558 -- to support networking at speeds of 10 or 100 Mbps. A single chip fast ethernet chip could easily be incorporated into the motherboards that Intel manufactures eliminating the need for seperate network cards from other manufacturers like 3COM <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: COMS)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: COMS)") end if %>. The stock price of 3Com took an understandable hit this week, dropping from a $30 a share at the beginning of the week to a low of $24. It closed the week at $26 7/8 a share. As recently as January, 3Com was at $78 a share, but repeated price cuts by Intel for network cards and related ethernet LAN equipment has caused 3Com and other networkers much consternation lately. America Online Continues to Grow Internet access provider Bolt Beranek and Newman announced last week it has expanded the value of its existing contract with AMERICA ONLINE INC. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: AOL)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: AOL)") end if %> to more than $700 million over four years. BBN said it is building and operating a substantial portion of AOLnet, a high-speed dial-up network. BBN signed its original contract with AOL in March 1995 for $55 million over five years and expanded it again in 1996 and earlier in 1997. BBN is responsible for providing dialup access to AOL customers.They are loyal users of Ascend MAX TNT remote access switches and will be responsible for providing AOL with its K56Flex service, the 56 kbps modem implementation offered by the Lucent/Rockwell camp. ANS, the dial-up provider company owned by AOL will continue to provide X2 service, the 56 kbps modem implementation offered by US ROBOTICS CORP. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: USRX)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: USRX)") end if %>. NETWORK APPLIANCE Network Appliance, ( Nasdaq: NTAP) which was awarded the "best of Interop" award at last year's networking convention in Atlanta, introduced web-caching technology last week for intranet and Internet applications. The idea is to speed up web browsing and reduce network traffic by bringing frequently accessed web pages closer to the users who want them. The first time a webpage is accessed, it is cached on a server connected directly to the LAN the user is on. From that point on, everyone who wants to access that page can read it directly from the online server instead of having to download it from the Web. Their Web proxy-caching software product was made available through the company's acquisition last month of Internet Middleware Corporation (IMC). By caching copies of Web content on multiple locations throughout the network, NetCache reduces access times, particularly for users located in remote offices who access the corporate intranet over a wide-area network (WAN) connection. What's more, Netcache reduces telecommunications costs by eliminating the need for multiple end-user requests for the same data. Network Appliance is an especially interesting little company whose main product is called a "filer." The F540 is RISC based (DEC Alpha chips); other lower-end models (some still in production) use Intel Pentium CPUs, and are proprietary rack-mountable computers with a built in raid systems and a rudimentary network operating system that is highly specialized and optimized for the task of file serving (currently, via NFS, CIFS, or HTTP); this, along with an advanced underlying file system called WAFL, is where the speed and efficiency comes from. The silicon-based operating system makes the internal processing extremely fast and efficient. The rack-mountable products come with bold brushed-steel curved faceplates lending them a kitschy industrial look. Cascade Gets Sued General DataComm Industries Inc. said it has begun a lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court against Sahara Networks Inc, acquired by CASCADE COMMUNICATIONS CORP. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CSCC)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CSCC)") end if %> in January, its three founders and 11 former General DataComm employees, 10 of whom were hired by Sahara. Cascade said Monday that General DataComm's allegations against it are without merit. General DataComm said the suit alleges that Cascade raided General DataComm employees with access to proprietary information and put them to work on products in competition with General DataComm. Cascade said it intends to fight the lawsuit. General DataComm said the suit, filed in Connecticut Superior Court, alleges that over a 15-month period Sahara raided 11 key employees from General DataComm's Asynchronous Transfer Mode unit. It alleges that the 11 had access to General DataComm proprietary information and that Sahara put them to work on products in competition with General DataComm. It alleges breach of written confidentiality agreements, interference with contractual relations, unjust enrichment, misappropriation of trade secrets, and unfair competition, among other things. General DataComm said Sahara was founded in May 1995 by three former employees of General DataComm. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages.

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