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

To: H.A.M. who wrote (59279)	1/18/1999 3:27:00 PM
From: H.A.M.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

Year 2000 Adds a Wrinkle to the Business of Merging THE NEW YORK TIMES Monday, January 18, 1999 BARNABY J. FEDER Once companies agree to merge, they always want to complete the process as quickly as possible. But the computer problems associated with the year 2000 have given them an added incentive. Take the expected merger of Lucent Technologies Inc. with Ascend Communications Inc., valued at almost $20 billion when it was announced last week. Daniel Stanzione, chief operating officer of Lucent and president of the giant equipment maker's Bell Laboratories subsidiary, said that the two companies are convinced that merging will not add to their risks from computing's Year 2000 problem -- the difficulty some computers may have recognizing dates in 2000 and beyond. Still, he conceded, "It was on the checklist of things we looked at." And Year 2000 concerns could delay some of the savings that Lucent expects to achieve from combining some of the two companies' functions. Stanzione says Lucent and Ascend will have a time window from whenever the deal is completed -- sometime in April if everything goes flawlessly -- until July or August to merge data-processing systems. "After that, we will probably have to freeze everything until we are past the beginning of 2000," he said. Whatever savings can be wrung from further consolidation will just have to wait. Stanzione also foresees other potential Year 2000 effects on the merger's near-term financial returns. He expects many phone companies, Internet service providers and other customers for Lucent's equipment to slow down their purchases toward the end of this year to concentrate on Year 2000 readiness.