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

To: joe who wrote (17819)	6/19/1998 10:29:00 PM
From: Mang Cheng	Respond to of 45548

3com is going to open a plant in singapore this year or it may even be opened, could that explain why Jabil is losing some business ? From coms' 10K dated May 31, 1997 : *************************************************************** MANUFACTURING AND SUPPLIERS 3Com has manufacturing facilities in Santa Clara, California, and Blanchardstown, Ireland. Purchasing, mechanical assembly, burn-in, testing, final assembly, and quality assurance functions are performed at both of these facilities. The Company also procures certain products and subassemblies through subcontractors. Over the past several years, the Company has been investing in automating its manufacturing capabilities, decreasing the costs and increasing the quality of both manufacturing design and production. In fiscal 1996, construction was completed on a 225,000 square foot office and manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Santa Clara, and the Ireland facility was expanded to 120,000 square feet. In fiscal 1997, the Company commenced construction on an additional 170,000 square feet of office, manufacturing, and research and development space in Ireland, and commenced construction of the first phase of development of a 325,000 square foot office and manufacturing facility in Singapore. The new Singapore manufacturing operations center, due to open in the third quarter of fiscal 1998, will be 3Com's first production site in the fast growing Asia Pacific region. The plant will be the first in Singapore to manufacture networking equipment and will produce 3Com's full range of high-volume products from network adapter cards and modems through sophisticated enterprise systems. Through the merger with U.S. Robotics, the Company also has manufacturing facilities in Mount Prospect and Morton Grove, Illinois, and Salt Lake City, Utah. zdii.com Mang

To: joe who wrote (17819)	6/19/1998 11:15:00 PM
From: Eric L.	Respond to of 45548

Joe, I don't have a problem answering your questions at a high level since most of my knowledge is just that! Jabil does work building boards for their Mass. & UK facilities. A company called Flextronics in Singapore and other Far East regions builds the majority of the Palm Pilots. Salt Lake City has 1 line dedicated to the Pilot as well. Once 3Com officially opens their new Sinapore facility sometime this fall, I would assume they would start taking the Palm business from Flextronics. I have a hard time believing that 3com is the missing link in the article saying that Jabils revenue will falter. I'm not sure of the total amount of work that Jabil receives from 3com, but Solectron to my knowledge owns 3com's outsourcing business. I could be wrong, I have been many times, but in this case, I don't think so. Moral speaking to the Casey Cowell Clan pretty much sucks! They went from a free flowing, entrepreneural company to more of a dictitorial type where you face Santa Clara 3 times a day and pray! Many of the USRX clan in both upper mgmt and below either has been removed, quit, conformed, or just bitch full time. With that said, I am one who believes that USRX days were numbered. If 3Com hadn't purchased them they would either have been bought by someone else (Cisco?) or be possibly dying on the vine. The big problem they had was their inability to be viewed as a serious player in the Networking World. They were just viewed as a modem company (gee...sound familiar?!) Their Network side of the business (NetSys) was doing quite poorly. They had the distribution channels and the retail market name, but no corporate business experience to speak of. That's why I thought the 3Com meger made sense and still does. IMO, poor management can be changed. Superior product performance, customer satisfaction, and unparalled knowledge distribuition cannot be done as easily. I for one, would like 3Com to succeed on their own or as the buyer, not buyee. My focus in life has always be to deal from a position of strength. Like I said earlier, I think our friends on the thread (even Craig) will be pleasently surprised by next weeks earnings, IMHO of course. Again, I enjoy your knowledge and passion of 3com and the industry. Feel free to keep asking me quesitons if you'd find my bantering helpful. Regards and Keep the Faith! 3Com Boy

To: joe who wrote (17819)	6/20/1998 12:58:00 AM
From: David Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

>>I want to make sure I got something right a few days ago from checking on Jabil and from fellow poster David Lawrence. It seems that the USRX side of 3Com does not contract out work to Jabil Here it is from the horse's mouth: JABIL CIRCUIT PRESIDENT THOMAS SANDSONE DECEMBER 17, 1997 ... " In the case of select communications customers, 3com for example announced, for example, I think last week, some difficulties principally with their modem products. We are not involved in those modem products." .... "The largest communications companies that we have are in the networking business. That is 3Com and Cisco. They're both about 20% of our business each. We do business with 3 different divisions at both of those companies so our business is spread fairly broadly across their business, and they're both great companies that have been hugely successful." jabil.com