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

To: WebDrone who wrote (8259)	4/20/1998 11:26:00 PM
From: Sector Investor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42804

<<Regarding management- a) 3com- the Robotics deal and insider sell off gave be the creeps. I lost trust in Benhamou and co. b) Bay- Dr. House seems like a good guy, but inherited such a mess. c) Cabletron- Just a mess with no one left holding the bag. 3 of the big 4 may have trouble keeping their mind on business, with all the internal turmoil. I think there is opportunity. I am watchful of Intel. CSCO, mrvc does well in avoiding their turf.>> Regarding management, I think you are right on. A mess is always difficult and long-term to clean up. CS and BAY and COMS all have problems with large amounts of legacy networking products (shared hubs, 10MB, etc) that are now low margin, but have to be maintained until they can transition their products and customers to newer technology. It may look like it is the management having trouble transitioning, as UBS says, but I think it is more of a product mix and cost structure (overhead) issue. MRVC is (I think) the #5 enterprise networker now (where does Xylan fit in?). Numbers 2,3,4 are all struggling, while MRVC is thriving. CSCO has the high end of enterprise networking (at $250/port or so), and they want into the low end, but the question is can they make money at $100 per port? MRVC can, and at the low end the customers don't need all the bells and whistles that CSCO offers (at premium prices), so customers are much more price/performance sensitive. It appears to me that MRVC has been very smart here with their aggressive pricing. This is giving CS, BAY and COMS fits, while keeping CSCO at bay also (no pun intended). Yes, there does appear to be opportunity here.

To: WebDrone who wrote (8259)	4/23/1998 9:31:00 PM
From: WebDrone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42804

Madge Spins-off Lannet ! This is interesting in terms of history and geography. Thursday April 23, 8:45 pm Eastern Time Madge Networks to spin-off Lannet JERUSALEM, April 23 (Reuters) - Madge Networks NV of the Netherlands (MADGF - news) will spin off Israel's Lannet Data Communications Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary, which will be listed separately on the Nasdaq, a Lannet official said on Thursday. ''Madge decided not to keep all of its business activities under one roof and decided to split them up so that they could control their own destiny,'' Koby Huberman, Lannet's vice president of marketing and business development told Reuters. He said the spin-off was likely to take place in the third quarter. Madge will distribute Lannet shares as a dividend to shareholders, Huberman said. Robert Madge, chairman of Lannet's board of directors will maintain his 40 percent stake in Lannet following the deal, said Huberman. In November 1995, computer networking group Madge acquired Lannet, a leading provider of Ethernet switched networking solutions and one of Israel's best known high-tech companies. In the second half of 1997, Madge decided that it would be more efficient to split up its business activities, and in January 1998 Lannet started to operate separately, Huberman said. ''Lannet became its own company in January 1998 and in the first quarter the business came back to profitability,'' he said. I liked the MRV news release today, very much. I printed a copy, and hung it on my wall. Richard.