Hi jc,
Long-term, good acquisition for FORE, short-term, not so good for FORE's current shareholders. I understand this is an all too familiar scenario for FORE shareholders but FORE management must believe this acquisition is necessary to ensure FORE's continued rapid growth and competitiveness.
It may be worth repeating the highlights of this merger:
"By adding the Berkeley Networks' technology to our product line, we can also offer each customer the most appropriate switching solution for their current needs, plus an easy migration path for the future."
"Berkeley Networks has been recently acknowledged as the #1 communications equipment company in "1998's Hot 100 Private Companies" in the May edition of Upside magazine and they were featured as one of "The Top 25 Hot Startups" in Data Communications magazine in October of 1997.
"Berkeley Networks was also awarded the Grand Winner - Best of Show Award acknowledging the single most significant new product or service at the recent NetWorld+Interop trade show held in Las Vegas in May of 1998.
"This acquisition brings together a common vision of Application Aware
network solutions across both ATM and Ethernet technologies. Berkeley
Networks' focus on the integration of network services via an industry
standard Windows NT software platform complements FORE's Intelligent
Infrastructure. Berkeley Networks' Application Aware technology enables the seamless integration of network powered applications with FORE's multi-service IP networks. This combination enables the integration and delivery of a wide range of new services in the areas of directory enabled networking, policy based network management, firewall switching, and high performance Gigabit Ethernet layer-3 and layer-4 switching solutions. With the introduction of these new products, FORE is well positioned to build on its success with large enterprise customers and expand into new markets, specifically medium sized businesses and IP service providers.
I also got to believe MSFT was pushing FORE to do this as well.
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