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To: Bill Fortune III who wrote (2250)	2/28/1999 4:09:00 PM
From: j g cordes	Respond to of 30916

Relevant News.. "Fore Goes To Ireland To Buy Voice-Over-IP (02/26/99, 6:55 p.m. ET) By Madeleine Acey, TechWeb Networking specialist Fore Systems has turned to Ireland to acquire voice-over-IP technology. The Warrendale, Pa.-based pioneer in ATM switching announced on Friday that it had acquired Dublin-based telecom-software company Euristix for $81 million in an all-stock purchase. When the company looked for others to acquire it didn't limit itself geographically, said Bob Musselwhite, Fore's senior vice president of new business development. Fore was very interested in the people themselves, he said. "Most of the companies we looked at were in the U.S.," he said. "But when we got into detailed discussions, Euristix had, by far, the better combination of expertise and good people," Musselwhite said. "There's a very strong skill set in Ireland, especially in telecoms," he said. Fore has gained 110 engineers in the takeover of the nine-year-old company, and Musselwhite said the management and marketing skills in the company were also attractive. Euristix's ability to work in many countries was another plus. "Almost all their customers are in other countries, they can deal on a remote basis." Phil Lakelin, senior analyst at Cambridge-based telecom consultancy Analysys, said he was surprised Fore didn't already have voice-over-IP technology. The company had equipment that could carry voice in the form of IP packets, Musselwhite said, "[but] typically, down at the edge of the network we use somebody else's product." Euristix CEO Jim Mountjoy said his company had grown enormously on an organic basis but could not see this continuing successfully. "Organic development on its own wasn't sufficient, so we set out to do something different with a partner," he said. His employees, who would all be kept on, owned shares in Euristix and were pleased with the deal, he added. Analysys' Lakelin said buying a start-up would have been the easiest way for Fore to gain the technology and competence it needed in the voice-over-IP area. "You get sparky bright people relatively cheaply," he said, adding that many American IT firms were facing a skills shortage.