Low Share Price at Massachusetts' Sycamore Networks Belies Stellar Earnings.

Byline: Peter J. Howe

Mar. 26--CHELMSFORD, Mass.--Call it a tale of two companies.

One has rocketed out of nowhere, in barely three years, to sales of $50 million a month and growing; it has 1,000 employees and a "deep bench" of executive talent bolstering its superstar founders. For the long term, it is planning a new marquee campus on a wooded 100-acre parcel up the road.

The other company could be the illustration next to the dictionary entry for "irrational exuberance," a classic Internet-era burst balloon that has wiped out over $35 billion in shareholder wealth in the last year, after investors' dreaming of a limitless market turned out to be looking at a mirage. They are, of course, the same company: Sycamore Networks.

By all accounts, it's still one of the most promising telecommunications start-ups in the region's history, now slogging through a rougher patch than anyone could have imagined in 1999.

All the good news about what Sycamore has accomplished in its 37 months of existence has fallen under the deep shadow of its stock charts. They show a painful slide from $172.50 in the dog days of last August -- and just under $200 at the March market peak -- to $11.94 as of the market close Friday.

No one questions that Sycamore continues to have some of the brightest leaders in the optical industry, including founding chairman Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande and president Daniel E. Smith, usually referred to as one animal called "Dan and Desh."