Silk Road's lonely path

Silk Road's lonely path
It's ironic that the editor of Lightwave magazine recently blamed "Wall Street buzz" for sinking the Ciena/Tellabs merger deal, and ultimately doing a disservice to the optical communications industry. The editorial charged that financial analysts' tendency to overhype and overcorrect was far more critical to Ciena's roller-coaster performance than any perceived conspiracies launched by Ciena's wave-division mux competitors. The irony of the editorial became fully apparent early this month in the form of Silk Road Inc., a San Diego optics company that broke almost every rule in the anti-buzz book.

I need to couch this argument carefully to avoid making it sound as if the trade press (as well as The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek) is mouthing sour grapes because they got scooped on the Silk Road story by The New York Times. Though the early story bore all the hallmarks of a controlled leak, we have to credit Times writer John Markoff with keeping skeptical mode on high. But the leak to the Times, as well as the spin campaign led by Burson-Marsteller and George Gilder, precisely epitomize what was wrong with the Silk Road introduction.

Sure, Silk Road has some good ideas in electro-optical modulation and synchronized DFB lasers. But there are plenty of great ideas in coherent and synchronized light sources, plenty of good ideas for non-dispersion shifted fiber, great concepts in lambda-switching elements, lofty schemes in reduced-size optical components-any one of which could revolutionize the optical-communications industry. But you need partners and programs. Silk Road's solitary introduction bore the weight that Fore Systems Inc. might have had in 1991 if it had tried singlehandedly to introduce ATM switching. Even with 50 companies behind it, asynchronous transfer mode took a back seat to the Internet Protocol, so what could Fore have done if it had taken the loner route?

The connector and transceiver communities, currently fighting the MT-RJ vs. Volition battle, understand the importance of lining up allies before making lofty claims. And in all-optical switching, Silk Road could take its tactical lead from Optical Switch Corp., a Texas company that elected to take a semi-covert approach at a recent optics conference by quietly showing its piezo-electric prisms to OEMs and component manufacturers.

The communications industry is about to enter what will be a tough 1999, when humility and hard work will be required to bring broadband to the masses. Telecom-style hype and buzz are the last thing needed, which is why Silk Road was greeted with such raised eyebrows.