HP Acquires 3Com For $2.7 Billion

There were several options for HP to combat Cisco in the networking arena, including Brocade and Polycom. It looks as though they have chosen to go after Cisco front and center by acquiring 3Com. The latter has done a marvelous turnaround in the past three years. The stock has moved steadily up, and now HP

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Cisco, Juniper, and Acquisitions

Yesterday, Cisco announced a strong quarter, and rival Juniper also reported a strong quarter recently, signaling early stages of recovery in the industry. While last month Cisco announced plans to acquire four companies, including Tandberg and Starent, Juniper says that it will focus on organic growth. Let’s take a closer look.

IBM Wants to Buy Sun? Why?

Boy, I wrote the last Sun piece with a recommendation for Sun to hold on to its OpenSource business, and divest the hardware business, and thought that Cisco may be interested in the DataCenter business in particular. And the news this morning is that IBM is considering buying Sun for about $7 billion.

Legendary Entrepreneur and Author Judy Estrin (Part 7)

SM: Really strong people do not tolerate that kind of dynamic. JE: The way to lead innovation is to bring out the leadership in each individual.

Legendary Entrepreneur and Author Judy Estrin (Part 6)

SM: What knowledge and experience did you gain from your time at Packet Design? JE: For the first time I realized how hard it is to hire CEOs. One of the problems with an incubator is that if you try to turn the idea over to someone else and it was not their idea, they

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Legendary Entrepreneur and Author Judy Estrin (Part 4)

SM: You merged with 3Com, which has a completely different dynamic and culture. JE: The biggest mistake is that we merged with the notion there was going to be an office of the president. Bill Carrico and Bill Krause were sharing the key roles. Bill Carrico was chairman and president and Bill Krause was CEO, or

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Legendary Entrepreneur and Author Judy Estrin (Part 3)

SM: Tell me some about how VCs received your concept when you were starting Bridge. JE: Bridge started in 1981 and we spent six months trying to raise money. We raised $1.8 million, and I remember one VC asking why we needed $1.8 million for a modem. I looked at Bill and said, “He doesn’t get it”. We

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Legendary Entrepreneur and Author Judy Estrin (Part 2)

SM: I have never even thought of myself as a woman. I have thought of myself first as an entrepreneur and a professional. JE: I thought of myself as a technologist first. When I became a leader and manager I thought of myself as a business person first and a woman second. Now when I

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