Sm@rt Reseller: Are you looking to buy any companies to fill out your product line?
House: We have a strategy of developing products when we have the capabilities, and acquiring when we don't. You've seen a number of acquisitions, and more will happen. We can't tell you where, otherwise the company's prices will go up.
Shrigley: We buy when there are time to market concerns. But remember, we have 20,000 development engineers and 8,000 engineers with IP expertise. This is a staggering machine from a product-development standpoint. Cisco used to sell end-to-end solutions before Nortel bought Bay. Now, Cisco's a little short on end to end.
Sm@rt Reseller: Cabletron is apparently on the block. Have they approached you? Do you have any interest in the company?
House: Obviously, I can't make comment on specific [acquisition targets]. But if you look at that product line, it's hard to find things that don't already exist in Bay Networks. Generally, we have newer, fresher products. Our product line is extremely strong right now. I think that asset [Cabletron] is going to be of more value to a company that's weak in enterprise data.
Sm@rt Reseller: You mentioned that Lucent is weak in enterprise data.
House: You know, so is Alcatel, Siemens, Erricson, Nokia, NEC and Fujitsu.
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