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

To: bucky89 who wrote (51281)	8/3/1998 3:19:00 AM
From: Bindusagar Reddy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Bucky, you belong on the SI thread. Yahoo has bunch of uncivilized people posting junk all day, no substance, we appreciate your input. BR

To: bucky89 who wrote (51281)	8/3/1998 3:31:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

Bucky89, your analysis is much appreciated <eom>

To: bucky89 who wrote (51281)	8/3/1998 3:34:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

NY Times says ASND/SRA boards approved $1B merger on Sunday nytimes.com August 3, 1998 Ascend Expected to Acquire Stratus By LAURA M. HOLSON Ascend Communications, the Alameda, Calif., maker of networking equipment, is expected to announce Monday morning that it will acquire Stratus Computer Inc. for about $1 billion in stock, a person close to the talks said. Both boards met and approved the deal Sunday, the person said. Stratus is a Marlboro, Mass.-based maker of computers designed to run continuously for customers such as banks and telephone companies. Some analysts suggest that Ascend is attracted to Stratus's technology to allow telephone carriers to offer services like caller ID or call forwarding over data networks. It is believed that Ascend will spin off Stratus's nontelecommunications businesses. Ascend's stock took a pounding on Friday -- down 14 percent for the day -- when rumors surfaced that the company was interested in Stratus. Investors were concerned that any acquisition by Ascend would be dilutive to its earnings. Last year Ascend struggled with slow demand and delayed customer purchases. For months Ascend itself has been rumored to be an acquisition target, either by Ericsson A.B. or Lucent Technologies. The company is expected to have sales of $1.4 billion in 1998. Stratus, for its part, has seen its stock tumble from a high of $60.75 in September to close at $28.875 on Friday. The Asian economic crisis has pared business among its customers. The company lost $10 million in the most recent quarter and saw sales fall 20 percent. In July it announced that it would cut 350 jobs, or 15 percent of its work force, because of a second-quarter loss. Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

To: bucky89 who wrote (51281)	8/3/1998 3:47:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

Bucky89, I had a thought about ASND's coup in getting Bruce Sachs from SRA. Chambers has repeatedly said CSCO is uninterested in mergers with companies from outside the SF Bay Area because he thinks cross-country mergers don't work. I always thought it was, frankly, silly for a networking firm to make this statement. Isn't the whole idea of the Internet to make the world a very small place? If a networking firm can't efficiently run operations across the country, who can? Anyway, it seems to me that Mory/ASND took the seemingly-effective but limiting CSCO strategy and turned it to ASND's advantage, i.e., Cascade and now Stratus in Massachusetts. Comments anyone? As part of the agreement, Stratus's well-regarded chief executive, Bruce I. Sachs, 38 years old, would head up Ascend's telecom business. Last year, Ascend attempted to recruit Mr. Sachs, say people familiar with the matter, but he declined the offer because he wasn't interested in leaving the Boston area. Mr. Sachs had previously worked at Bay Networks Inc. and had been brought to Stratus last May to help get its house in order and prepare for a possible sale. Ascend first approached Stratus about a possible deal several months ago while the two companies were engaged in a project with MCI Communications Corp.