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ANS & Northern Telecom Partnership: a COOK Report Newsbrief
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 04:53:43 -0500
From: cook () path net (Gordon Cook) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 03:54:07 GMT Earlier today ANS announced a strategic alliance with Northern Telecom. We know this because ANS emailed the COOK Report on Internet -> NREN its press release. We were not entirely surprised for in our November Newsletter (published on October 29) we had predicted as much. There we wrote: "We have heard that while the mid-levels have generally reached some form of accommodation with ANS, their dislike of ANS is still generally strong. Having lost in its bid to inherit the NREN, ANS is now in search of a mission to justify its continued existence. We are hearing that ANS and Northern Telecom are talking about a strategic alliance that reportedly includes a seat on the ANS Board for Northern Telecom. Also that ANS Network Operations in Ann Arbor is expected to move into new headquarters provided by Northern Telecom in November. (Joel Maloff, shortly before we went to press, told us: "I did not say that we had no plans to move into a Northern Telecom building.")' . . . . "Joel Maloff also said that ANS had developed two thrusts. One was a function as a commercial services TCP/IP network provider. The **other** was R&D where ANS sold development services. He stated that Northern Telecom is discussing the development of IP over ATM and desk top multi media tools over IP with ANS." [End COOK Report excerpt.] According to the press release: "Northern Telecom becomes a strategic partner with ANS, originally formed by MCI, IBM, and MERIT (an organization of nine universities in the State of Michigan), in the development of a new broadband fiber network infrastructure and applications for voice, data, image, video, and multimedia communications. "We and ANS believe that we can greatly enhance this country's information infrastructure - the 'information superhighway,' as it's sometimes called - by working hand-in-hand to develop and test advanced broadband multimedia technologies," said Gerry Butters, president, Northern Telecom Inc., and the newest director on the ANS board. "As a provider of high-speed communications and switching equipment, and a participant in many of the emerging broadband ATM networks, Northern Telecom is welcome as the newest ANS member," said Allan Weis, president and chief executive officer, ANS. "Our relationships with Northern Telecom and our other allied information technology companies, including industry and academic representatives, will yield tremendous benefits for the global Internet and its end users," Weis said. [END excerpt from Press Release.] While we are still looking for the benefits delivered to the internet by the first phase of ANS's existence, we admire Al Weis' continued optimism. Yes it delivered a backbone. And according to the new fifth generation upgrade of the backbone announced by Ittai Hirschman the other night, that backbone may function at full T-3 speeds by the end of the Merit CA more than three years after NSF started paying for a T-3 network. And yes it delivered more than $175,000 into an infrastructure pool. It thought at first, it was destined to take over and run the NREN. But, with a lack of knowledge of the Internet culture and heavy handed approached, it alienated many people and ensured that this would not happen. It also thought it could put the Fortune 1000 on the Internet. From what the COOK Report has written about ANS CO+RE's troubles, we can predict that that won't happen either. So why would Northern Telecom buy into ANS? We believe that Northern Telecom is too savvy a company to buy in with the primary desire to support a very weak commercial TCP/IP services provider. However with Northern Telecom's emphasis on making hardware for broadband ATM networks, IBM's continued interest in high speed multimedia hardware, software and networks and MCI to provide the transport, we have the makings of yet another information super highway strategic alliance of the kind reported in the July 14, 1993 Wall Street Journal with the graphic that showed what looked rather like a complex molecule identifying companies with names like General Magic and Taligent. It looks as though ANS will join this group - where as a means of inter corporate investments - profits will be secondary to R&D work that spins off to the advantage of the investing partners. For IBM the move looks like its latest attempt to pursue multi-media broadband networking. The effort mounted a year ago by Lucie Feljdstadt failed. Little if anything since the end of last year has been heard of IBM's PARIS/PLAnet, Orbit, Comet trials over Rogers Cable 500 mile long fiber network in Canada. Having been created as a shell to inherit NREN, perhaps ANS can now move on to life as a shell for it's parent companies ambitions for being players in NII. We hope it will do this under its own steam *WITHOUT* federally funded **cost sharing** agreements whereby the US Government gives it an advantage in the marketplace. If this *is* the course ANS takes on the next stage of its evolution, we shall wish it well. _______________________________________________________________ Gordon Cook, Editor Publisher: COOK Report on Internet -> NREN 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 cook () path net (609) 882-2572 _______________________________________________________________ **Note - this article may be cross posted to other lists, so long as it is not edited and used in its complete form - including this note.**
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