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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: joe who wrote (15358)	4/30/1998 12:38:00 AM
From: Mang Cheng	Respond to of 45548

Joe, just some responses to your post : Pro's 1) <A lot more capital to work with. Heck, COM's should really be at $24-36billion market cap.> COMS is still being considered a commodity company - difficult to erase this impression from anaLyst's mind. 2) <Good/great expertise from USRX personnel.> No doubt about this. Thank you very much and it's time to let some go. 3) <Inherited USRX's distribution system (D.Lawrence mentioned that one time - wish he would expand on it sometime....)> US Robotic is the premier brand-name in the PC industry - they make the best modems - plain and simple. 4) <Eric B.'s a pretty crafty guy (IMO).> That doesn't help my leap option at all ! :-( Con's 1) <Modem standard's problem. I'm not sure how much these problems could have been prevented or at least anticipated better. > The strategy of swamping the market with high-quality non-standard products didn't seem to work - coms/usrx is no Intel. Added to this an Asia flu caused the inventory problem. 2) <Financial statements> non-issue 3) <Modems will eventually be dead technology. > 80% of the market will still be conventional modems for the forseeable next few years around the world. There are just too many problems with deploying ADSL and cable modems. Mang

To: joe who wrote (15358)	4/30/1998 12:56:00 AM
From: David Lawrence	Respond to of 45548

>>At it's present $12billion and being down in the dumps, it's still always referred to as the #2 networking company. Better risk/reward ratio at this point compared to just about everyone. >>(Those Ascend guys probably hate hearing that.) Screw 'em. (Although, I'm long ASND too.) >>I think they're the ones that came up with the Palm Pilot. That was the Palm Computer sub. They were smart to buy 'em, capitalize 'em, and use the leverage of their [USRX] distribution channel to own the handheld market like no one before. >>Inherited USRX's distribution system (D.Lawrence mentioned that one time - wish he would expand on it sometime....) That was one of the jewels of the acquisition - channels into spaces that neither they nor their competitors (Cisco, Bay, Ascend, Shiva, Cabletron, etc.) did not had, in particular, retail. The 'Flex vs x2 war hurt 3Com, but it absolutely destroyed the other client modem OEMs. GVIL sold out to Boca, who is just trying to stay alive. HAYZ died and just doesn't know it. Zoom is in hibernation. Motorola has been trying for months to unload their line-products division - today they announced an "investor group" would buy in, and MOT would retain an equity stake. In other words, no buyers. USR also had/has a strong presence with the national ISPS - 9 out of the top 10 use TC hubs. They may not be big or popular with mom and pop ISPs, but they own the consolidators. The crown jewel was USRX the software company. USR achieved dominance because of their DSP coding capabilities. That will be a huge asset as datacom moves more and more towards programmable DSP based solutions. >>Modems will eventually be dead technology. Not anytime soon. Modem standard's problem. I'm not sure how much these problems could have been prevented or at least anticipated better. The Rockwell camp lied through their teeth, but it worked. It's history, now. There are still unsettled patent issues.