bucky89, come on, you really believe ASND would turn down a $72 offer from
ERICY, or anyone else (OK, maybe Zapata :))? Its very difficult for me to accept
ASND getting 75% takeover premium from anyone, in this market environment.
Hi gary,
Always a pleasure to think about your comments and respond to them, though I may disagree.
Yes, I do believe it's possible Mory would turn down a 72 offer from ERICY. For one thing, who knows what goes on behind closed doors, and in fact LU may have given Mory a better price already. For another, it's going to take a heck of a merger to compete with Cisco, seriously. Mory has several million shares of ASND, and it's going to take him a good many years to sell off those shares even if ASND becomes part of a larger entity. He has a strong interest to make sure ASND falls into the right hands, and becomes part of a player that can take on Cisco. Thirdly, remember that Mory knows how this quarter is going, and if in fact the quarter is going to be a blockbuster (which many rumors seem to be indicating), we may see ASND easily in the 60's in October. In this light, 72 may not be such a good deal. Lastly, the rumor seems outrageous enough that someone probably didn't just make it up out of thin air, and there may be some basis behind it.
And why do think Mory has such a bias toward LU? I would think just the
opposite. Most of his company, including the piece that would rightly be called "his
baby" (TNT), competes directly with LU's remote access business.
See my first comment above. I believe LU is the only potential acquirer of ASND who may have a good fighting chance to take on Cisco. Yes, Mory might be pissed at LU's boneheaded acquisitions of Livingston, Yurie, and Prominet. But I believe the LU execs now are realizing that this strategy is a big mistake, and they will ante up for ASND.
And don't underestimate the IP expertise that was purchased in that Prominet deal.
gary, I believe it takes more than IP expertise. I believe it takes IP experience. LU does not have it. If you have worked with Cisco's routers, you'll know how complicated and unreliable they are. They have so many features crammed into them that the software modules constantly trip over each other. People complain about Microsoft, but I think Cisco is worse. They purposely let their customers do the debugging.
Now if Cisco the ultimate IP authority can't get it right, how can Lucent even come close? No way, Lucent needs someone who has sold a lot of switches into networks that talk with Cisco routers. They need someone who has experienced and dealt with the issues that data network providers have to deal with. Prominet does not fit this description. Other than Bay, I think only one other company fits the bill, and that is Ascend.
Also, don't believe for a minute that companies such as LU and CSCO have many
teams "competing" to develop like products.
In strategically vital areas with potential for mega-growth, I believe they do. Why did Cisco buy Stratacom when they had Lightstream? Lightstream switches were selling into the enterprise quite okay. I believe because Stratacom at the time had the AT&T account (although they lost it to Ascend about this time last year).
Good talking to you. Would like to chat some more, but it's pretty late.
bucky89 |
