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B R E A K F A S T W I T H T H E F O O L Tuesday, December 5, 2000 benjamin.rogers@enron.com _________________________________________________________________ Sponsored By: Scottrade Open an account at Scottrade.com! $7 Trades, 120+ offices, personal brokers, FREE REAL TIME Quotes & live charts. Visit Scottrade.com today to find the branch office nearest you. http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=227742 "One hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong." -- Graffito 3COM DISAPPOINTS Can a cash-rich balance sheet offset a slowdown in orders? By Rick Aristotle Munarriz There was a time when 3Com (Nasdaq: COMS) networking equipment and U.S. Robotics modems meant techie heaven. That time has long since gone. Citing a shortage of parts and a slowdown in orders from telco carriers, the company warned that third-quarter results would come in softer than expected. 3Com is now projecting revenues for the period to come in between $765 million and $780 million -- more than $100 million below analyst estimates. A loss of $0.19 to $0.23 a share is also nearly three times as wide as Wall Street's forecast for an $0.08 deficit. 3Com had already begun to fade away from the investing community radar. Once the company completed its spin-off of personal desktop assistant maker Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) back in July, growth investors had little reason to stick around. Standard & Poor's felt the same way. It ditched the company in favor of its Palm sprout for its S&P 500 Index. While there are no guarantees, shareholders might take solace in knowing that 3Com remains cash-rich. With $2.7 billion in cash and short-term investments, the company is stacked with $7.75 a share in greenbacks. In theory that should help limit the downside not much farther below the $9.50 the stock was fetching in after-hours trading yesterday. But even that may prove to be knobby-kneed shelter if losses continue to widen. However, 3Com believes that the carrier orders have simply been put on hold -- not hung up on the receiver. Shareholders better hope that 3Com is making the right call this time. _________________________________________________________________ NEWS TO GO A slowdown in orders will also be taking a toll on Xilinx (Nasdaq: XLNX) this quarter. The specialty chip maker warned that it too would be reporting revenues short of analyst expectations. Like its rival Altera (Nasdaq: ALTR), who had warned just last week, an inventory backlog will not be a painless fix. It's time to pay for play at MP3.com (Nasdaq: MPPP). The popular digital music site has now unveiled a "Premier Service" upgrade to its existing My.MP3.com listening solution. For $49.95 a year, users can beam up to 500 CDs to their account and stream as many as 300 songs in a row without interruption. While the free service never capped the allowable discs, it did have to be restarted after playing every 50 selections. So much for the free music revolution -- though the free basic My.MP3.com service seems set to continue. http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=227743 http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227744 Finland's Nokia (NYSE: NOK) should give the wireless sector a roaming charge this morning after the top dog announced that it expects revenues to grow in the 25-35% range through at least 2003. Nokia controls nearly a third of the global wireless handset market. While weakness in online advertising is certainly not news anymore, industry leader DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) confirmed the malaise by sending out pink slips yesterday. The layoffs are minor relative to other realignment sackings -- less than 10% of its workforce -- but it does confirm the hard times in the realm of Internet marketing. Brother, can you spare a banner ad click? The thong throng? According to Bloomberg.com, News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and Disney (NYSE: DIS) have received European Council approval to team up with Brazil's Globosat Programadora for a joint venture in the latter's home turf. So an Australian media giant teams up with a stateside titan and a local behemoth to produce Brazilian television programming -- and Europe nods? It's a small world after all. _________________________________________________________________ EDITORS' PICK Paul Commins wants you to understand why the Rule Breaker's knickers aren't in a knot every time the market is down. http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227745 _______________________________________________________________ -News & Commentary http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227746 -Fool Community http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227747 -Post of the Day http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227748 -Latest Fribble http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227749 -Latest Market Numbers http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227750 ____________________________________________________________ My Portfolio: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227751 My Discussion Boards: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227752 My Fool: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227753 Fool.com Home: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227754 My E-Mail Settings: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227755 Sponsored By: Scottrade Open an account at Scottrade.com! $7 Trades, 120+ offices, personal brokers, FREE REAL TIME Quotes & live charts. Visit Scottrade.com today to find the branch office nearest you. http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=227756 17 STOCK IDEAS, ONE REPORT Don't miss our best-selling research product, Industry Focus 2001. Available in electronic download or hard copy. http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=227757 ATTENTION, BIOTECH INVESTORS: NEW INVESTING GUIDE Learn to analyze the potential of biotech companies with our new biotech investing guide. http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=227758 FOOL DIRECT E-MAIL SERVICES Need to change your address or unsubscribe? You can also temporarily suspend mail delivery. Click here: http://www.fool.com/community/freemail/freemaillogin.asp?email=benjamin.rogers @enron.com< Have ideas about how we can improve the Fool Direct or new e-mail products you'd like to see? Try our discussion board: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=227759 ____________________________________________________ © Copyright 2000, The Motley Fool. All rights reserved. This material is for personal use only. Republication and redissemination, including posting to news groups, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of The Motley Fool. . MsgId: msg-6183-2000-12-05_9-01-50-3251057_2_Plain_MessageAddress.msg-09:06:33(12-05- 2000) X-Version: mailer-sender-master,v 1.84 X-Version: mailer-sender-daemon,v 1.84 Message-Recipient: benjamin.rogers@enron.com
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