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

To: Bindusagar Reddy who wrote (56975)	11/10/1998 11:22:00 AM
From: hitesh puri	Respond to of 61433

I agree. CSCO is nothing close to MSFT. To a certain extent one can argue that their routers are a monopoly like Windows but MSFT is not hostage to pricing pressures and constant fear of a rival or even a small startup leaping ahead with a new product (which ASND has done in carrier class switches and RAS and 3Com has in VPN, L3 and Gbit). Cisco enjoys the feature that they are in an industry where the vendor is involved in designing of the network and it helps to buy from a one stop shop (to reduce headaches) but that soon can be replicated. Notice how quickly Ascend has beefed up its Consultancy Service division. Cisco management talks well and gives analysts good fodder for them to feed the cows (investors) and milk their money with strong buys even though growth is slowing and all previous metrics are failing by a mile. Nothing wrong in that and it works. -hitesh

To: Bindusagar Reddy who wrote (56975)	11/10/1998 11:27:00 AM
From: ibrandybuck	Respond to of 61433

"<Don't put CSCO in the same class as MSFT. It is not even close. CSCO is a sales machine not a tech innovator."> Pardon my intrusion into your little tiff. But I couldn't resist responding to BR's observation. I hope you are not asserting that MSFT is a great innovator. I would say they are the ultimate sales machine. I have more respect for CSCO as a tech innovator than I do for MSFT. But such is the risk of argument by analogy. Long time participants (even us lurkers) on the thread recognize that Gary sees the world through CSCO colored glasses and BR sees the world through ASND colored glasses. I suspect Gary's ratio of CSCO to ASND may, indeed, be on the order of 10:1. Since mine is the opposite, I find his viewpoint refreshing. CSCO is not going anywhere as a company and I think the NOVL analogies are a stretch. CSCO is arguably one of the best run organizations in the world - I simply think the potential appreciation of its stock price is far less than that of ASND's.

To: Bindusagar Reddy who wrote (56975)	11/10/1998 12:08:00 PM
From: The Phoenix	Respond to of 61433

Ooops, MSFT - an innovator? Hee hee. CSCO is far more innovative than MSFT. Let's see Windows ala Apple, IE ala Netscape, Apps ala Lotus, Directory ala Novell. You call Msft an innovator? Anyway, I do put Cisco on the same playing field with Msft and Dell as do many industry luminaries and analysts. I however respect your opinion that you don't feel the same way....and yes, I'm very positive on CSCO. I however do not walk around telling everyone that CSCO is the de-facto standard and that they "own" the market...and that any single win means Cisco will continue their dominance. I post that CSCO is a strong contender, along with LU, and NT to drive next generation networks. For this reason I think CISCO is a great investment and will continue to power through the market. Remember, last quarter book to bill was over 1 for CSCO - much strong than most (if not all) of Cisco's competitors. They are not slowing down. Oh, and note that much of Cisco's growth last quarter was switch sales. So, although I think ASND is a great company and a great investment they are NOT the de-facto standard and they will NOT win all the carrier business as you pontificate. OG