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

To: Doug who wrote (29749)	4/17/1999 3:27:00 PM
From: kech	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 45548

Doug- Under the criticism that Coms lacks focus I have heard many plans proposed. One was that COMS sell the Total Control business to Siemens. In my opinion this would totally undermine the "edge strategy" because the edge strategy implies being involved with one system from the ISP to the edge. So when analysts make these recommendations under the "get focused" criticism it seems to me like an unfocused recommendation. Now I can buy the argument that COMS can't afford all of its R&D and the cutback from Storage Solutions was part of 3coms response. But what else would you suggest they get rid of at this point? Will this undermine the edge strategy? How do we distinguish between "lack of focus" and an "edge strategy" that is just about to work? Lets discuss it! There are some interesting suggestions from the previous post that the edge strategy could just be about to kick in. What milestones can we look for to determine if the edge strategy is working? Analyst Rich Doherty of The Envisioneering Group said AOL is trying to expand its reach through four types of devices: portable phones or hand-held computers, TV set-top boxes, phones with built-in video displays and cable TV converter boxes. It is making progress on the first three of those fronts, but not much on the fourth, he said. Doherty said AOL's mail service already was available on two early handheld computers, and now the company is talking to 3Com Corp.'s Palm Computing and leading mobile phone makers about new efforts. On so-called screen phones, AOL has reportedly agreed to a trial run on French manufacturer Alcatel's WebTouch phone, one industry source said.<i/>