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

To: gbh who wrote (48081)	6/5/1998 1:00:00 AM
From: bucky89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

Heard this afternoon at ATM Year 98 Conference, San Jose Convention Center: "...Right now I'm recommending Ascend Communications...I think you should buy the hell out of Ascend right now..." - William Rabin, Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Securities "Who will be the challenger to Cisco? Lucent, right after they buy Ascend..." - Paul Johnson, Managing Director, BancAmerica Robertson Stephens "...Lucent doesn't know anything about data networking...Lucent doesn't even know how to spell 'IP'..." - Paul Johnson, BARS These were snippets which stuck in my head after watching the entertaining investor's forum in the conference. Paul Johnson is quite a charismatic character. I was impressed. All three panelists (including Michael Goguen of Sequoia Capital) agreed that Lucent was very likely to buy Ascend. Two themes stuck in my mind after attending two days of the conference: 1) The emergence of MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching). 2) The battle between super-routers (POS) and intelligent ATM switches. Ascend was generally acknowledged as the leading ATM vendor for the WAN. Cisco of course is the king of routers, and the Cisco speakers generally tried to downplay the long-term significance of ATM. Cisco is pushing their large routers, and MPLS as a technology which doesn't necessarily need ATM. Nortel seems to be right on the heels of Ascend in developing ATM-based MPLS switching technology. Newbridge and Fore were pushing their own brands of MPOA. However, MPOA is generally acknowledged as being best suited for the campus environment, not for large ISP WANs. The Ascend booth was very unimpressive for a company acknowledged as a top-tier ATM player. I couldn't find them at first, and almost mistook them for some startup. They need some marketing folks. Or big daddy Lucent to come buy them up. bucky89

To: gbh who wrote (48081)	6/5/1998 7:50:00 AM
From: Sector Investor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

<<1) Yurie - ATM access concentrator equals ASND's SA line. 2) Livingston - RAS/RAC equals ASND's MAX/MAX TNT line, although ASND does own MUCH larger market share. 3) New IP switch - equals (roughly) the GRF line. They still need the ATM switching line (and customer base to go with it). This makes a case for ASND. But, to avoid a lot of overlap, they either develop in house or take FORE. FORE is loosely aligned with NT, but very loosely from what I can tell. NN is aligned with Siemens and has too much older TDM gear in the portfolio. So if I had to place a bet, it would be FORE, or develop internally.>> Not "equals" - PARALLELS. You can't say that just because they bought companies with comparable products, they are equal. You have to consider all aspects, hardware capabilities, software capabilities, customer base, market penetration, price/performance, etc. Just buying Livingston doesn't give them TNT equality, and just buying or developing ATM doesn't automatically give them CSCC equality. Do you think buying FORE or Livingston, that LU gets all of ASND's customers and market share? There is a big difference from just being a player and being a leader. You aren't being realistic. If LU wants to be a leader, they either have to buy the leaders or fight the tough fight over the long term to become the leader.