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

To: Jan Crawley who wrote (40493)	3/22/1998 12:50:00 PM
From: Peter Yang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

I don't expect ASND to rise much next week, barring any significant news. The best it can do is to stablize in 31-34 for now. Since it's now window dressing time for fund managers and many fund managers are rotating their money out from Tech sector and into other sectors. The money flow to Tech sector is currently negative. NASDAQ will continue to underperform relative to DOW and S&P for awhile. I wish those fund managers would rotate their money back to the tech sector soon, the DOW is just getting too hot!!!

To: Jan Crawley who wrote (40493)	3/22/1998 1:16:00 PM
From: Peter Yang	Respond to of 61433

It looks like the competition in RAS for ASND is getting worse and worse (see below. The fact that Nortel just bought Aptis makes this situation even worse for ASND. Is this the possible reason for ASND's drop recently?). IMO, if ASND cannot prove to the street that the gain (improvement) in Cascade side can do more than just offset any losses in the RAS side, ASND is not going to appreciate much in terms of the stock price. I believe the business in Cascade side is going to heat up in the second half of the year according to ASND management. Therefore, until then ASND is probably dead money for awhile. Any comments? Thanks, >> Access Just For The Big Boys -- Switch integrates three modems on a chip By Matthew Friedman Aptis Communications Inc. has just raised the ante for industrial-strength access. The company last week announced its CVX 1800 access switch designed for large-scale service providers and enterprises. "The current set of products from our competitors are really designed for the consumer market, and not for really large-scale applications," said Paul Gustafson, Aptis' CEO. "Carriers and the big providers are looking for much higher density and scalability than is currently available." The CVX 1800 is designed to meet those demands. Employing soon-to-be-released DSP technology from Rockwell Semiconductor Systems that integrates three modems on a chip, the CVX 1800 will deliver extremely high line density-1,344 modems or ISDN lines or 448 T1 lines per unit. "Our goal with the CVX 1800 was to provide true carrier-class access," Gustafson said. "Instead of racks of modems, what we do is take the whole point of presence in one box." He said smaller, regional ISPs and companies will probably continue to build the old way, but the big players are excited by the POP-in-a-box. "Today, no one supports taking a T3 into one box-we support three," said Gustafson. Aptis also has designed support for a wide variety of telecommunications services, from basic dial-up and leased lines to xDSL. The combination of higher capacity and support for different services offers some advantages. "Large ISPs can provide greater and scalable access in less space, with power demands and heat output," said David Boast, vicepresident of dial access at Uunet Technologies Inc. "Multiple service support will let providers add new services without trashing their existing access hardware." "That's a major concern when you're providing a lot of access," he said. "We have to have the tools to stay ahead of demand." Uunet and GTE Internetworking are participating in a beta trial of the CVX 1800. That trial is expected to conclude in the first quarter of 1998. "This is definitely the kind of technology that we're looking forward to," Boast said. "The more we can fit into smaller spaces, the better. If Aptis can deliver, this product puts them way ahead of the pack." Whether the company can deliver is, in fact, the big question. "Aptis has no track record in this space and that's going to be their uphill battle," said Aberdeen Group analyst Virginia Brooks. "If Nortel or Newbridge went to a provider with this box, you can be sure they'd sit up and notice." Nevertheless, Brooks is quick to point out that if the CVX 1800 comes in on schedule it could be the start of a high-tech Cinderella story for Aptis. "The fact that Uunet and GTE are excited about this is a good sign," she said. "I don't know of anything on the market that comes close. Its port density and support for multiple services is way above anything from Cisco or Ascend." The Aptis CVX 1800 will be available early second quarter of 1998. Prices start at $59,000. Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc. <<