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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tim Luke who wrote (20988)	11/4/1997 11:44:00 AM
From: Sector Investor	Respond to of 61433

ML comments ML says that unit shipments for the MAX TNT and GRS product lines are up sequentially, but price cuts are expected to result in flat to modest increase in sequential revenues. They commented that list price per port for the MAX product family has declined to $550 in September 1997 from $750 in 1996 and $1400 in 1994 and is expected to decline to about $400 in 1998. ML believes that ASND will come out with new products with lower list prices in 1998, which will be consistent with Ascend achieving 25% operating margins. (

To: Tim Luke who wrote (20988)	11/4/1997 11:50:00 AM
From: Andie Wei-Ku Lin	Respond to of 61433

Tim, Mory said in as many words that he was NOT in discussions with Lucent...at a keynote speech last week...Tuesday or Wednesday?

To: Tim Luke who wrote (20988)	11/4/1997 11:50:00 AM
From: Sector Investor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Furman Selz says: AEA Comments Reinforce their 4Q Outlook FS says that cautious optimism was the tone as October was on plan and was better than the first month of each of the last two quarters. ASND stated that Japan is still soft but is at least partially being offset by better stability in the U.S. and Europe. FS anticipates ASND will have aggressive pricing action for the first half of 1998 in RAS. They say that ASND has stated this for the past several months and it has been built into their expectations for aggressive price reductions throughout the industry. They think that ISP consolidation is a potential risk in terms of impact on sales cycles. They believe that ASND's internal demand forecasting accuracy and accountability is a priority issue They view the forecasting issue as the most critical internal agenda item for ASND. ASND said that the company's new CFO, Michael Ashby (formerly CFO of Pacific Bell) will be closely focusing on improving forecasting for the company's products. FS is closely watching subscriber/port ratios and average holding times on Internet connections as leading indicators for ASND's access products outlook. They estimate that the average subscribers/ports ratio is in the low teens, and that in order for this ratio to decline there needs to be an increase in average holding times for Internet connections. They think that if these trends remain favorable ASND is attractively valued at its current price. They reiterated their estimate of $292 million in revenue and $0.25 EPS for 4Q97 (December)