i hate to ruin the thread and discussion but....
why would anyone in their right mind own this stock or a potential acquirer purchase asnd?
1. ras - who do you think of, csco, coms and asnd, everyone else is a niche player. csco does not fear either coms or asnd, they see a market ready for the taking with asnd and coms divided. even coms and asnd must recognize this, but neither will blink.
2. wan switching equipment - csco, asnd(cscc), nn. this area is expanding and is expected to grow to 10 billion by year 2000 from about 4.5 to 5 billion this year. who wants a piece of this market? who wants to own this market? the growth of this market is phenominal, and for those with ras, this ties in and helps to promote market share.
3. gartner group predicts isp contraction in the coming years. csco dominates the mainstream telcos and asnd dominates int he smaller isp's. this is asnd's achilles heel, how to break into major telcos and isp's.
coms needs to continue to grow, and become dominant in the fastest growing segment (the internet), and to challenge csco. to do this, a merger/buyout of asnd would be complementary towards this goal. coms is already in major lans in telcos, corps, and isp's, with the purchase of asnd, coms could then promote end to end solutions for these companies and any other company. they become a microsoft in the lan/wan business. from nic, modems, hubs, switches, atm, routers, ras, netork monitoring,... all interconnected from one company. when problems arise you call one support number, and do not have the finger pointing as with mixing equipment vendors.
although i use coms, other companies can view asnd in the same manner if they want to become a major player in the internet. hitech companies want to go towards growth, right now and for years to come the internet provides this opportunity.
unfortunately so far the asnd/cscc merger has not brought these two comapnies to the next level - a synthesis (hegel) of the two companies becoming a dominant company.
i may be harsh, but asnd needs someone with the strength to push it over the top and compete with csco. asnd can compete, but needs a backbone, a cpq, lu, coms...
again, i apologize for interrupting the thread to discuss asnd. |
