Karl, COMS is the Number 2 data equipment maker behind Cisco. Revenues for 97 were $5.4B. Their ADSL product, although a different solution compared with PAIR, evolved from their LAN/WAN technologies. COMS sell select telecom equipment, so I am not surprised to see they landed this ILEC. If your read the press release, COMS already supplied data equipment to SRT. They likely leveraged their relationship to "break" into the telecom sector. As the bridge between data equipment and telecom equipment manufacturers close, expect more such announcements by "traditional" data equipment makers. This will FORCE companies in respective industries to seek alliances or merge to be able to compete in the consolidating sector. The ultimate bomb will be when the day Cisco announces a win with a major teleco.
BTW, COMS was rumored to be a takeover target for LU to compliment the potential ASND buyout. Yesterday, ASND released earnings which beat the estimate by a penny. However, their stock price dropped almost 5 due to questions relating to accounting practices.
In general, CLECs, ILECs, and ISPs will be the faster growth customers for telecom equipment makers when compared to RBOCs, T, Sprint, Worldcom, and GTE as competition heats up to provide local, long distance, internet, and data delivery services. Hoping for PAIR to make such an announcement to further help increase the stock price. |
