I was talking about ASND buying Cascade.
Well, why didn't you just say so, instead of stating how ASND's strategy is to buy low (SRA and CSCC), selloff unnecessary pieces (SRA), and make sure who owns who (???).
Wrong! the old ASND is saved by Cascade ATM. The ISP side of the business is not very good.
No question the ATM and frame switching products from CSCC are currently providing the growth engine. But, ASND is still the RAS/RAC market share and revenue leader. This business is not growing at the rate of ATM/frame switching; yet. However, a new product cycle is at hand with the MultiVoice and SS7 Gateway products that leverage the MAX and MAX TNT lines, and new contracts that leverage these unique solutions are being announced regularly now. I think you will see this piece of the business showing much better growth rates as early as this Q.
So why did ASND just work with Pirelli recently?
Maybe because LU, CIEN, or any other DWDM vendor wasn't ready for the Williams trial. There is no way to know who approached who, but its clear that ASND and Pirelli were at the forefront of demonstrating this technology, rather than just PR (CIEN/CSCO). LU is even further behind, but this can't be expected to last long.
In any event, ASND must proceed as if they will be a stand-alone entity. LU sees this, and this is why ASND will command the takeout premium that we CIEN shareholders can only dream about at this point.
I personally don't think Ciena needs any takeover to recover, I actually hope all this rumors and speculations can just die down. Let the longs and shorts and Ciena fight it out.
Over the long run, there will be very few niche companies like CIEN. CIEN great growth period is over, just like ASNDs. Both these companies, to survive over the long haul, will need to be just a piece of a much larger business. The gorillas will run networking in the the not too distant future.
Gary |
