From Barron's:
In the networking industry, Cory[ Charles Cory, who heads Morgan Stanley's high-tech M&A group], says, the old-line communications equipment companies, like Lucent Technologies, Nortel, Siemens, Alcatel Alsthom, L.M. Ericsson, Philips Electronics and Nokia, have plotted a collision course with the data communications firms, like Cisco Systems, 3Com and Bay Networks.
"The convergence of data and voice is a freight train," he says. "People had better get their brains around that." Aside from Cisco, almost any of the data communications companies could end up getting swallowed by their deeper-pocketed rivals. Cory advises keeping an eye on Lucent starting in late 1998. At that time, the company, which was spun out of AT&T in 1996, will be freed from a restriction that prohibited it from making acquisitions using the favorable pooling-of-interests accounting treatment.
How many out there think TLAB can make it through 1998 an independent company? |
