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Technology Stocks : MRV Communications (MRVC) opinions? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael H. Dragon who wrote (6780)	1/20/1998 11:03:00 AM
From: signist	Respond to of 42804

When MRVC get finished with xyplex you can bet they will make money! Quick read; Top management comes from Digital, over 15 years with them, they even have two Marketing people with impressive credentials I am tickled to death about this but I sure would like to hear from Mike Winn and Dan and/or our other technical experts. John

To: Michael H. Dragon who wrote (6780)	1/20/1998 11:19:00 AM
From: Michael Kahn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 42804

> it doesn't appear as if Xyplex is making any money I would bet that they're not. I used to work at Xyplex - let me give you a little history of what happened there. Xyplex was at one time an independent company. In 1994(?) Raytheon (a defense co) decided that they wanted to get into the communications business, so they approached Xyplex and offered to buy them. Everything appeared peachy. Xyplex got a blank check from Raytheon and they could do whatever they wanted - one of those things was to grow. They wanted to grow through acquisition - but Raytheon being a stodgy old defense company wasn't nimble enough to make the necessary acquisitions. Late in 1995 the Raytheon-Xyplex relationship started to sour and Raytheon decided to sell Xyplex. Early in '96 Whittaker (who had a year before bought Hughes LAN Systems) stepped in and bought Xyplex from Raytheon. They merged Xyplex and Whittaker Communications (Hughes LAN) together to form the new company called Whittaker Xyplex. Things got kind of messy at this point - the focus of the company shifted from the West coast to the East coast and more recently the company was branded Xyplex Networks. During 1996, there was a mass exodus of engineering talent from the company - I left in July - and I think things have been downhill ever since. I realize my tone here is somewhat bitter. This may be sour grapes. Take it for what its worth. Just realize that Whittaker paid something like 130 mil for Xyplex, and MRVC just paid 35 mil.