Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 3, 1990 TAG: 9005030143
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gavin Dyer of Sydney, Australia, finds FiberCom "very avant garde in communications." He's making his third visit to the plant on Orange Avenue Northeast.
Dyer expects to sell the network to universities, banks and the government for security use. The network is used to increase access and communication among computers within a business or institution.
The network, operating up to 25 times faster than an earlier generation, is based on a large box of circuit cards, selling for up to $60,000, according to Albert Bender, FiberCom chairman.
Marketing of the Roanoke company has good direction and position, Dyer said, as it seeks a broader commercial market, avoiding the mistakes of companies that concentrate on defense.
Bender told the visitors the company expects to reverse by 1992 its ratio of 70 percent government sales to 30 percent commercial business.
From $900,000 in international sales in 1988, the company grew to $2.8 million last year and a 25 percent increase is expected this year, said Ed Schaffner, international sales manager. Schaffner is going on the road, taking the new RingMaster to Tokyo next week and to Europe two weeks later.
Erja Wasenius of Ericsson, a large Finnish company, said her firm reviews the products of other manufacturers but FiberCom's RingMaster is unique.
Alain Pirlot of Paris said the Roanoke company "seems to be the best" of 20 vendors in the market but he would like to reserve judgment for a year to see how the new network performs.
"It's good to be the first and the best," he said, but it is important to have the right technology at the right time. It's like buying a Ferrari at the right time, he added.
FiberCom has taken a risk by investing money and time and the company is saying, "We have the product; it's your turn," Pirlot said.
This is not the last generation of the network, he said. "It may be the father but we have to have the whole family."
In telecommunications, unlike many other industries, Japan "is following U.S. technology," said Ryuji Nonoichi of Nippon Mining Co. in Tokyo. The Japanese have made fiber optical equipment but have not perfected the type of network made by FiberCom, he said.
Nonoichi is a sales engineer for a telecommunications subsidiary of Nippon Mining, a copper and zinc company. His company will sell the network mainly to universities and governmental offices, he said.
The visitors represented companies in eight countries.
by CNB