What would a 3Com owned by Nortel or by a set of private equity firms, mean to Cisco’s market?
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal blog reported that 3Com is being approached by private equity firms and Nortel. Private equity firms have been particularly active of late in the high-tech sector. Silver Lake Partners, mentioned along with Bain Capital by the WSJ as a possible suitor for 3Com, recently teamed with TPG to take Avaya private in an $8.2 billion deal.
When the Avaya news broke last month, observers said the outcome was not the best for Cisco. Instead an Avaya-Nortel tie-up would have been a better deal for Cisco, since it would have taken those companies a year to integrate and presumably would have given Cisco that much time to counter.
What would be the outcome for Cisco if 3Com was taken private, also? Or purchased by Nortel?
Further reading:
Analyst: Time for 3Com to act
3Com on the block?
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