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

To: Doughboy who wrote (28514)	3/2/1999 6:35:00 PM
From: Edwarda	Respond to of 45548

I don't think tomorrow will be one bit pretty as estimates have to come down pretty markedly. BTW, the conference call replay should be starting about now. Why didn't they save some pennies from last quarter? Because this company does not operate with a backlog; it produces and ships to the channel. (In product lines that do not overlap with COMS, CSCO does have a backlog.) Moreover, because of the more disciplined policies re channel inventory (after last year's debacle), the company did not try to make the numbers by shipping more product into the channel. The surprise was not in Palm and older access products. It was in enterprise end user demand in the U.S. (Maybe Y2K? If so, look out as it hits Europe and Asia next.) These products in particular tend to ship at the end of the quarter as distributors try to cut the best deals by waiting until the last week or so to order. Hence Eric would not have seen anything to confirm the shortfall or its size except some rumors; remember that the company was saying that the quarter would be unusually back-end loaded.