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

To: Tim Luke who wrote (58274)	12/23/1998 4:51:00 PM
From: Daniel Wang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Now ASND at 66, could you tell us what is the buyout price will be. Say, if this is not from LU.

To: Tim Luke who wrote (58274)	12/23/1998 6:07:00 PM
From: Rob Pierce	Respond to of 61433

I (think I) understand how ASND would fit with LU, and think that the persistence of the rumors is in part because of A) the relative lack of overlap between the two product lines and B) despite continued acquisitions on both parts neither has done a deal that obviously scuttles the speculation of a deal between each other. Still, lots of "known" speculated deals turn out to be completely wrong. And still other potential deals drag on for so long that another suitor comes along and steals the bride (BT/MCI/WCOM for example). ASND joining with LU makes sense to me. ASND joining with CSCO doesn't. Your mentioning of IBM is intriguing, particularly since they recently sold their networks to AT&T. It would be an interesting move for them to switch from owning the networks to merely servicing, supporting, and provisioning them. So, just for the sake of discussion, why would IBM want ASND, and how would it benefit ASND to link up with Big Blue? How would it be a better or worse fit than a deal with LU? One thought is that IBM is not known for killing a good brand name just because of an acquisition (Lotus, Tivoli). So Ascend might be better able to retain its identity and goals under IBM, whereas those might otherwise get swallowed up in a LU deal. Rob Pierce