From the yahoo thread...
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Telecommunications-equipment maker L.M. Ericsson
Telephone Co. said it intends to be "opportunistic" in acquiring
data-networking technology.
But the Swedish company said its sense of urgency to enter the market will be
tempered by a desire not to overpay.
"You feel some pressure to do something
quickly," said Gary Pinkham, who as vice
president of business development and
data-networking solutions oversees Ericsson's
data-networking business in the U.S.
But in a market where company valuations are very high, Ericsson wants to be
sure any purchase creates shareholder value, he said.
In that vein, Mr. Pinkham said he hasn't talked about a possible combination
with 3Com Corp. Rumors have been swirling around Wall Street that Ericsson
may be poised to snatch up the maker of modems, network adapter cards and
data-networking devices.
Mr. Pinkham said he views 3Com's CoreBuilder gigabit switching technology
as potentially interesting to Ericsson, as well as the company's U.S. Robotics
component and its PalmPilot.
But 3Com's exposure to network adapter cards, where technology is expected
over time to be swept into a computer's central chips, is less attractive, he
said.
Mr. Pinkham said Ericsson is interested in four areas of data networking. They
are access technology, such as remote-access concentrators and ADSL
technology; transport technology, such as wave division multiplexing;
asynchronous transfer mode, or ATM, edge and core switches; and Internet
protocol technology, such as software and high-performance routers.
In the wake of Northern Telecom Ltd.'s proposed acquisition of Bay Networks
Inc., there is "a lot of hype going on in the marketplace," Pinkham said, and
the list of major data-networking companies is getting shorter.
In this environment, Mr. Pinkham continued, he expects Ascend
Communications Inc. will be purchased. Wall Street expects companies such
as Lucent Technologies Inc. and Tellabs Inc. to be interested.
Ericsson, however, is not going to be pressured into making a purchase it
doesn't think will fit, he said. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, an
Ericsson executive said the company is looking at 10 networking companies in
the U.S. and has begun acquisition discussions with three, each in the
several-hundred-million-dollar range. |
