Laurel: Startup Holdout?

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chimpz 12/5/2012 | 12:01:31 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout?
> Laurel has done very good job in presenting its products on a piece
> of paper. But a close examination will reveal that it is a clumsy
> product with no scalability prospects.

Laurel won the Metro Edge Router Test, which Cisco and Juniper
failed to show up, are you suggesting that
the tests were rigged
since the product is crappy?

The results look pretty decent to me.

http://www.lightreading.com/do...

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fiber_r_us 12/5/2012 | 12:01:30 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? ummm... why is anyone spending time responding to Booby's postings??? You're discussions are assuming that his posting had *some* value to begin with!

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konafella 12/5/2012 | 12:01:29 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? sevenbrooks,

I have to say I can't agree with your bashing of gbennett's remarks.

You seem to imply that GEC/Marconi was the only company to overpay for an acquisition (regardless of payment methods of cash or stock). They paid what, $4B? I think Fore was at a run rate of close to 1B per year at that time. The Fore acquisition likely generated another two or three billion of revenue since then. A bad investment, no doubt, but they are just now beginning to reap the benefit of the new BXR-48000 so you can't close the book quite yet.

But are the other big vendors innocent? Nortel? They acquired Xros and Qtera for multiple billions of dollars each. And they subsequently cancelled the products. Cisco? 1B for Monteray (shut down) and 6.9B for Cerent (with likely < 1B of revenue to date).

As gbennett says, the price GEC paid was the going rate at the time for a company in that space. Recall Newbridge went for 7B soon after. Tellabs was bidding on Fore as well, and if GEC didn't buy them Tellabs likely would have. Remember, it was TOP OF THE BUBBLE!

KF

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wilecoyote 12/5/2012 | 12:01:29 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? So here's what I know about Laurel, so the idiots who are comparing possible valuations to customer and revenue-LESS Timetra and Vivace can have some real information vs. typical message board speculation:

1) They have more than 10 paying customers.
2) Generating plenty of revenue and approaching profitability.
3) Team is solid.
4) Plenty of money in the bank to get well into 04, and well into break-even.
5) Focused on building a business vs. flipping the place. What's noteworthy here is that they are interested in ensuring any kind of post acquisition success to the team can stick around.
6) They are not aggressively shopping the company, if shopping it at all.

Some more Thursday fun:

NOK/RBAK was dead a year ago. NOK embarrassed by Amber debacle cause they never sold a single box. Laurel looks good as a GGSN/wireless router but NOK is gunshy now and trying to figure out how to kill MOT and the Taiwanese handset mfrs.
Seimens pissed about Junicent deal and wants another crack.
Juniper likes the BRAS story at Laurel and needs to hedge their $750M bet.
Cisco desperately needs a 7xxx replacement.
ALA made their bet.
Ericsson could revive its data business.
Nortel blew Shasta and is still nowhere in IP services.
Lucent could really use a service creation play as Springtide is pretty much written off.

So plenty of options for Laurel if the IPO market stays closed for another year-plus and they can't raise money (they can).

So tell me, should you really be "careful with Laurel?" Laurel's investment protection and service creation stories hit two of the top three must have's these days, the third being a <6 month guarateed ROI.

I think it's a winner. For once I agree with LR and think they should stay #1 on the top ten list.

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Belzebutt 12/5/2012 | 12:01:29 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? There's also speculation that Juniper might be interested.

Why would Juniper buy Laurel? They cancelled the MRX multiservice switch, I think if they were interested in that space they would have kept it.

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Belzebutt 12/5/2012 | 12:01:29 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? I'm sure that employees of Lucent, Nortel, Cisco and others feel exactly the same way when he trashes their current or former companies.

Actually Bobby doesn't seem to trash Nortel much. Is that good or bad?

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signmeup 12/5/2012 | 12:01:27 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? Well WC, with insider information like knowing about 10 paying customers, you can only be an insider...

Nonetheless, good luck and I wish Laurel (and you) the best!

signmeup

BTW: I believe cisco does have a replacement for the 7xxx - its called the GSR.

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Belzebutt 12/5/2012 | 12:01:26 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? Nortel blew Shasta and is still nowhere in IP services.

Whether you like Shasta or not, it's the leader in IP services.

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wilecoyote 12/5/2012 | 12:01:26 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? Thanks signme, but no I'm not an insider. I do not hold a single share of Laurel Networks. But I have some buddies in the company and I know one of their VPs pretty well.

GSR for services? Come on...GSR's getting long in the tooth, only about 3 years newer than 7xxx.

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signmeup 12/5/2012 | 12:01:26 AM

re: Laurel: Startup Holdout? WC,

I didn't say that it was a good replacement <g>!

Just that cisco seems to think that the GSR is their 'new' edge platform with the HFR becoming the core box. Frankly I never felt that the GSR was suited for either the edge or the core, but then again I tend to be a purist.

I know a couple of Laurel engineers and they seem to be pretty upbeat about the company.

signmeup</g>

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