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

To: joe who wrote (22539)	10/6/1998 3:14:00 PM
From: Eric L.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 45548

Joe, >> The name of the game in this space is to survive the shakeout and then ride the growth wave as large enterprises upgrade to 10/100 switching, Gigabit and OC-12 backbones and coverged WANs for voice and data.<< A couple quick questions, is OC-12 the next level of speed past the gigabit ethernet? Also, it seems to me that the Voice over IP and Voice over Network is the next great opportunity for companies such as COMS, CSCO, LU, NT, etc. How do you think COMS is positioned in this market? What is the market? This to me seems to be huge as we're looking towards the future. Thanks in advance. Eric L.

To: joe who wrote (22539)	10/6/1998 5:47:00 PM
From: gfr fan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

<<I guess the network sector and COMS are currently in the shakeout phase, don't you think?>> Yes - not pretty for the stocks, but more importantly, not pretty in the actual customer marketplace for most of these guys. Over the last several years, CSCO, COMS, Bay, CS, and FORE competed for large enterprise deals. The trend is going to end-to-end systems and hand holding from a single provider. This knocks FORE out of this space, especially as packet based LANs move ATM nets to the WAN (not a traditional FORE core competency). CS' financials are in the toilet, and they are losing installed base hub customers to CSCO and COMS. The Bay-Nortel deal (I think) is going to create more uncertainty for Bay and Nortel customers than assuredness which leads to another opening for COMS and CSCO. Foundry and Extreme can grow quickly by picking up the scraps at first, but this doesn't give them the critical mass for the long haul. I don't think too many large customers are going to trust their entire network with Extreme, Packet Engines,or Foundry, so it leaves them niche pieces. It gets them on the revenue scoreboard, but eventually they hit a wall (read MRVC, XYLN, MADGE). I think CSCO, ASND, and COMS can grow earnings - most of the others bite the dust.