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

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (28743)	12/29/1997 3:47:00 AM
From: George T. Santamaria	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

<Because of ASIC chips technology we will see a continued trend of lower price per port this year but margins remaining roughly stable. > Let me add my two cents worth to this one. First of all, I did get a legal brief concerning the class action suit against ASND. While technology advances are continually pushing down costs, it has become painfully clear from reading the 1997 history of ASND preented in the case that something has gone wrong with this picture. Mgt. clearly got too aggressive. When a company pushes new products out too fast and hard as ASND did about a year ago, the loss in reputation and the costs of replacing and/or reworking hardware can easily wipe out the benefits of a couple of year's worth of technological advancements. ASND now has good working hardware - my ISP uses it. It is reliable. To say, as the case does, that ASND management conspired to deceive shareholders might be giving management too much credit. It is more likely that management was both naive and on an EGO trip. Consequently, they were not looking carefully at the conduct of hardware and software simulation and testing and, as a result, failed to discover the problems at such a time that they could be easily and painlessly corrected. By the time the problems were detected, it was too late and product was shipping. I find the possibility that ASND mgt. was not culpable somewhat frightening because it implies to me that they are quite incompetent at running a high tehnology business. Do we want these people involved in another aggressive product rollout with our equity? I know that I am pointing this discussion in another direction but I think that we ouight to question how competent mgt. is and, at the very least, do a full damage assesment on their 1997 debacles. Anyone care to contribute some insight?