Jan, I think we have to look at all of 1997 as a transition year.
What happened in the first half of 1997? We had a severe slump in all the networkers, because of a general fear of a slowdown in sales. All the networkers slid - CSCC from $80s to $24, ASND from $70s to $40-50s, FORE from $30s to $10, COMS to $23, SHVA to $8.50, MADGF to $5.50. The reasons given were a delay in buying decisions by enterprises and telcos. As usual the market has a hard time distinguishing one networker from another, so they took them all down.
Then the merger, then the 56K and TNT problems in the Summer, taking ASND first from $59 to $40, then to low $30s then to low $20s.
Until recently, even post-merger ASND was still thought of as strictly a RAS company. I remember Mark Haines of CNBC commenting after Q3 earnings in October that ASND was "not a true networker" as they only made access equipment. Thus the RAS slowdown took ASND WAY down - even when CSCC's great prospects were becoming apparent ( I saw that in March when I first bought CSCC), they were ignored.
The fact is that ASND now has a new market - and one that is growing explosively.
ASND can now sell CSCC products to it's former customers and ASND products to former CSCC customers. Plus, the blending of the two sets of technologies can win more sales of both products to ALL customers.
Keep in mind that RAS/RAC products are connected to enterprises at one end and core providers at the other. One sells the other, but especially what vendor is used in the core can have an effect on the vendor's equipment chosen to connect to it. In ASND's case, both sides will work together as integrated products - a big advantage.
I think the ASND/CSCC combo will open many doors and provide many more opportunities than either company would have had separately, which is why they merged in the first place.
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