<<take over rumors: BAY, CS, etc>>
Do you know what all these companies have in common?
They are all Cisco victims. In 1995, Cisco went after
BAY, in '96 they went after CS, and this year they
went after ASND. Yeah, a three-way merger of Cisco
RoadKill. Just the ticket to paradise, not!
Anyway I believe ASND can do better by themselves.
They will lose focus with a takeover. Despite all the
end-to-end hype, stitching together these companies is
like putting together Frankenstein's monster. From
dead body parts. Since no one can match Cisco's end-to-end
story, they shouldn't even try. Instead target a market
segment (in ASND's case, remote access, WAN) and concentrate
on competing with Cisco's ISP line of business, instead
of trying to take on all of Cisco with a motley grab-bag
of stuff from CS, BAY, COMS, and ASND. (Hey, a four-way
merger, how about that?) ASND need to concentrate on where
they are strong. Even Chambers admitted in the CC that
it is hard to unseat the incumbent equipment provider.
Sure, Cisco is taking market share. But the market is also
growing as more people work from home, more businesses
is done on the extranet, and more people chat on the internet.
BTW, I believe 1998 Cisco will go after COMS. They just
stated they're going into the consumer market. And are
also partnering with Intel and other consumer products companies.
Only LU can save ASND, because Cisco hasn't hurt them yet.
BTW, I have a little ASND, because they are my latest worry-stock.
(I've had MU, PAIR, AMTX, MCOM in the past). And the funny
thing is I always have to have a small bit of money in one
stock to worry about totally out of proportion to its
percentage in my portfolio. So I'm hoping Ascend can regain
razor-like focus on RAS and WAN instead of looking to merge
with the likes of BAY or CS. |
