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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gfr fan who wrote (35426)	10/14/1999 11:20:00 AM
From: The Phoenix	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 45548

gfr, Thanks for the points. Again, if you have data let's spend some time pouring over it. As I have mentioned I am not as strong in wireless as I'd like to be but I do believe I have a good handle on the market you are asking me to look into. I did post the market data - apparently those facts were not enough to persuade you that COMS still has a significant way to go to be a player in residential broadband and IP telephony. if you don't know what's going in the VOIP space I think I do.... , snoop around...not with current market share (which is a rounding error of the coming wave), but with what the global carriers are doing. Please, I know that COMS claims to have 9 out of 10 ISP's using their equipment. I believe that the ISP's and carriers are trying to get their arms around this new technology and are therefore using a number of platforms...in a kind of live bake-off. But I must say that it is odd that COMS claims #1 market share when clearly the data not bear this out. As you pointed out there is a long way to go in this market and a number of players. My point is that to date however COMS market share is very small (at least according to independent statistics). Further their reliance on H.323 when most in the industry know it will not scale will probably limit their growth. As for enterprise I should point out that the NBX is based on NT which only uses the TAPI API which is very weak and doesn't support media control - only call control. This will limit the type of applications that can be developed on this enterprise system. In fact now that I think about it Total Control is based on NT as well....hmmmmmm. cable is still a rounding error. But check what's happening. Remember who owns TCI and Media One Cable has been taking off and it may be a rounding error for COMS but it is not for MOT, CSCO or NT (Nortel). If I do recall the owner of TCI and soon to be owner of UMG (not a done deal yet) recently got a $10B investement from Mr Softy and a commitment to use CE based STB's. The headends appear at this point to be going to CSCO. check out COMS NBX LAN telephony system. The best on the market today, period, and leader in ports shipped. Again, the data I posted do not bear this out. This appears to be a recurring thing on this thread. I did post the facts and you refute them with opinions and yet I am defending independent facts? How does that work? The NBX is very cool but has a number of significant holes. That however is expected for a first pass. I think CSCO's AVVID and NT's (I think it's IP Connect) enterprise systems are one up. Although still both based on NT...I think both have done a little extra to round out their API suite. take a look - you may be surprised. Also take a look at the edge protocols and edge to infrastrucutre QoS mechanims. A bit more advanced than COMS. BTW: COMS IP Telephony web site is a little weak so I may be missing some things here are there. If I am please help out the thread by filling in the blanks. check out what COMS and MSFT have done together to date - NT integrated into Total Control and the CoreBuilder 9000, home networking products recently announced. What do you think happens to this relationship now that Palm is being spun off? How does MSFT view CSCO? Hmmm, this is a good point. Remember Mr Softy wants NT everywhere and COMS helped Mr Softy out... this will be a tool for Msft to get to other vendors. However NT is notoriously buggy and trying to sell a platform based on NT to the carriers will be a tough sell - take a look at competitive carrier based telephony solutions...they are not built on NT. NOw that Mr. Softy has COMS using their OS they will move on...their is no love between Msft and anyone else. It's not what you did for me..it's what are you going to DO for me next.... Another point ot consider is that Microsoft is working with Dialogic (now INTC) via their $44M investment to build call control into NT. That will commoditize this call management market. If COMS marches down the path of NT without differentiation they will be competing with MSFT..and MSFT is very shrewed - contrary to popular belief here. As for CSCO and MSFT. I believe they are Strategic Partners and have been working closely together for ages. They are in bed together on Active Directory which is key to network deployment and resource management and key to Microsoft's strategy to get into service provider environments. In fact if you look at Win2000 it is 90% directory and Microsoft can not risk the Cisco relationship if this strategy is to succeed. That's it for now..... gotta move on. Please add more data that will help benefit us all.... OG