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

To: Gary Korn who wrote (29911)	1/10/1998 11:49:00 AM
From: Jeff Jordan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

comments from Briefings: General Commentary Asia's deepening debt crisis, a steady stream of earnings warnings, the upcoming barrage of earnings reports and deteriorating technicals led to widespread selling on Friday... The volume imbalance (down volume outlegged up volume by nearly 8 to 1) and the Nasdaq's move back below 1500 suggest that additional selling is ahead for the already battered tech sector... Chip industry to set the tone for the week, as Motorola, Intel, Advanced Micro, Lattice, Linear and Chips & Technologies among the companies due to release their quarterly results... Market will be paying very close attention to INTC's report due to recent speculation that company might exceed estimates by as much as $0.15... We think this is pie in the sky stuff, but street is desperate for good news... If Intel disappoints the street or makes overly cautious comments regarding future prospects due to Asian contagion group will lead a sector wide retreat... Investors also want to look for news concerning capital spending plans... We suspect a number of companies to join Atmel in trimming back their budgets, which of course is bad news for the chip equipment makers. Friday's sell-off only exacerbated the market's fragile state... Now is not the time to step back in as momentum is decidedly bearish... Wait for a clear buy signal... You may not catch the bottom but you will significantly reduce the risk of getting caught in a bull trap. For a complete list of tech companies scheduled to report earnings in the week and month ahead, see Briefing's Tech Earnings Calendar. Computer Systems & Peripherals Brief: Group was pummeled on Friday in response to Adaptec's earnings warning... Company announced that weak demand domestically cause for problems... Stock plunged over 14 points on 29.8 mln shares... Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment and SCI Systems posted losses of 3 points or more... Compaq, and Sun Micro also came under intense selling pressure... Most alarming was the increase in volume on the downside - especially late in the day... After the close Sun Microsystems announced that TCI will incorporate the PersonalJava (TM) platform as a standard software application in the advanced digital set-top boxes... Considered major win for SUNW... Earnings concerns kept disk-drive makers in full retreat... Quantum (-2 1/16) and EMC (-1 7/8) were the big losers. Computer Networking Brief: Despite announcement that it was comfortable with its earnings number, Ascend unable to buck bearish trend... Stock fell over 1 point... Other losers included Bay, 3Com, Cabletron, Cisco and Newbridge... As noted on this page last week, Shiva quietly moving higher... Stock added 5/8 on Friday and moved to within fraction of key s/t resistance at 11... Break above ceiling points to retest of 14 area... Volume stats also impressive... Could there be a buyer in the wings? Telecommunications Equipment Brief: By now you get the picture... Friday was a bloody day with few exceptions... None of those exceptions resided in the telecom equipment industry... To the contrary, industry was among the hardest hit with Advanced Fibre (-9.3%), ADC Telecom (-7.8%) and PictureTel (-8.6%) pacing the retreat... PairGain nears key support at 14 5/8... Stock has taken a beating in recent months... Insiders actively selling in past month. Semiconductor Equipment Brief: Asia, Asia, Asia... Region's growing crisis weighed on sector as did corresponding earnings fears... Average decline among component issues for the session was 6.8%... Horrible technical tone for the entire sector argues strongly against bottom fishing at this point... Biggest loser Friday was Kulicke & Soffa (-13.4%) moving to within 1/8 of its 52-wk low (set 12/15/97).

To: Gary Korn who wrote (29911)	1/10/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 61433

TCI sees cable set top box standards soon Reuters Story - January 09, 1998 17:06 TCOMA %US %DPR %BUS %TEL SUNW MSFT INTC V%REUTER P%RTR PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan 9 (Reuters) - A senior executive of leading U.S. cable television company Tele-Communications Inc said Friday the company and its open cable initiative industry partners have yet to select a microprocessor or operating system for new advanced digital television set-top boxes. "We have not settled as of today to a specific microprocessor or operating system," Bruce Ravenel, president and CEO of TCI.NET and senior vice president of TCI Communicaitons Inc. said in a conference call. "This is a fast-moving process and those decisions are being made as we speak," he told reporters and analysts. "The time frame is in the immediate future. We can't spend much time dilly-dallying about the future," said Ravenel of the decision to select a microprocessor and operating system. He said more than one of each might be chosen. The comments came as TCI announced with Sun Microsystems Inc. that the companies had reached agreement for TCI to use Sun's PersonalJava as standard sofware on its advanced, fully configured digital set top boxes. Ravenel said TCI planned to begin shipping the advanced boxes in early 1999, and that TCI expected to ship 6.5 million to 10 million of the boxes. Some early reports of TCI's pending deal with Sun said it had angered software giant Microsoft Corp. , which is engaged in an often bitter rivalry with Sun over control of new technology platforms as computing becomes more pervasive. Microsoft has been frequently reported to be closing in on a deal of its own with TCI, and has been rumored to even be willing to invest $1 billion of its multibillion dollar cash pile to help debt-ridden TCI roll out digital capabilities. But some analysts said the deal appeared to leave plenty of room for Microsoft to supply its Windows CE operating system, for example, or semiconductor maker Intel Corp. to supply the microprocessors. "We have a relationship with Microsoft and Microsoft may be a supplier of an operating system to work with this device," said Ravenel. "Not every piece of software will be implemented in PersonalJava," he added, saying some programs would work just with the processor and system software. "We've had conversations with Microsoft on an ongoing basis," he added. Nevertheless, the Sun-TCI deal will likely irk Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, who was due to present a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Saturday, a day after a speech by Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy, analysts said. "I'm sure that Bill Gates is not going to be happy about this deal," said David Wu, a financial analyst with ABN AMRO Chicago Corp. "Gates doesn't like anybody (else) to get anything."