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

To: Finder who wrote (750)	12/15/1997 2:38:00 PM
From: Sector Investor	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1629

Synopsis from a section of an Alex Brown (AB) analysis of NN: Regarding Packet/Cell Competition: AB says they have also heard concern from investors that new interfaces from ASND/CSCC could lead to increased competition for Newbridge's packet/cell switches, particularly the 36170. ASND(CSCC) remains the number one market share leader in carrier class frame relay products and has a strong history of frame relay technology firsts. AB mentions that ASND announced on 12/8 a number of B-STDX 9000 enhancements that will further enhance their product offering. New features include a channelized DS3/1/0 card, ATM DS3 cell switching capabilities and OC3 ATM interworking. AB says that in their opinion, ASND is the leading competitor to NN in the carrier market and is clearly moving up to ATM from its strength in frame. NN was late to the frame market and early to ATM and is moving in the opposite direction. AB thinks that NN still has the upper hand in pure ATM deployments particularly those applications (such as voice/data/video integration) outside of pure frame relay backbone applications. Both vendors will prosper, and AB senses that Cascade's business is strong. AB says as they have noted many times in the past, they believe NN is positioned strongly with the 36170 and that there are a number of large carrier (both domestic and international) contract announcements to come over the next several quarters. AB says they believe the potential of this business is not reflected in their model. [Sector's comment: As of a few months ago, NN didn't have much of an OC-12 capability and no OC-48 (I asked), and were pushing all OC-3 solutions. It is interesting that AB doesn't mention the speed aspects in their analysis. IMO, ASND's new GX-550 OC-48 capable ATM sw will eat them up in the WAN space until they get competitive at the higher speeds. There seems to be stronger demand at the higher speed levels. Gee, I wonder why?]