*OT*
In a nutshell, 3Com has become a pathetic also ran to Cisco. A couple years back, both companies were neck and neck. Cisco went with the high margin enterprise networking biz, and 3Com went the 'network edge' route, which turned out to be low margin and much more of a commodity business. They do have a winner in the Palm product, and got some good telco end networking equipment from the USRX deal. They simply have been unable to capitalize... The company has been in the dumper since buying USRX a couple years back, but it does seem to be a nice trading vehicle. In the past it has bounced from the low twenties to the 50's a couple of times. This time it looks as if it may go lower. They got Bruce Claflin (discussed here in the recent past as a former IBM, then DEC manager with good credentials, unfortunately he did not elect to stay with CPQ). If Claflin can displace Benhamou as CEO the stock would definitely be good for a couple of points at a minimum.
Regards,
John |
