Word: 3com
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...subsidiary is only partly divested. Known as equity carve-outs, these divestitures tend to be IPOs of less than 20% of a business. The parent retains the bulk of the stock--and control--but often later gives that stake to shareholders as a tax-free dividend. Early this year 3Com sold 17% of its white-hot Palm unit in an IPO, then gave the rest to shareholders in July. The average carve-out does well. Palm has doubled since July, although it remains below March's mania levels. But parent companies tend to lag in this case (not so 3Com...
...tough to feel affection for a trapezoidal slab of metal and plastic. In fact, when I first laid eyes on Audrey, the new Internet appliance unveiled by 3Com last week, I was underwhelmed. Here we go again, I thought: yet another overpriced, underperforming PC wannabe. Like many of the so-called Net appliances that preceded it (see below), Audrey promises the joys of the Net without the cost or unwieldiness of a full-featured computer. Given the lackluster company it keeps, though, that's not saying much...
...also banking heavily on another form of wireless--short-range-radio technology, the basis for its new Bluetooth protocol (named for a 10th century king who unified Denmark). Bluetooth, whose first stages will be rolled out this summer by a consortium of industry titans including Nokia, Ericsson, IBM and 3Com, will eventually let all your devices talk to each other and work together. Click on a name in your Bluetooth-enabled PDA, and it will find your cell phone (even if it's still in your briefcase) and place the call. If you have a Bluetooth-enabled earphone...
...only genuinely disturbing aspect of the ubiquity of advertising--the real reason to get nervous--is that it has begun to supplant what was formerly civic and public. There's no Candlestick Park anymore, just 3Com Park, and now there's a PacBell Park to match. The venerable Boston Garden was replaced not too long ago by the Fleet Center: a city erased, its role played by a bank. A little town in the Pacific Northwest just renamed itself after a dotcom company in return for a generous donation. I won't mention the name here, since I figure advertising...
...there are other, hidden hells involved in connecting to a public, commercial wireless network. I did, however, set up one of the new generation of wireless networks. I used the Dell 4800LT Wireless PC Card ($139) for my laptop and the corresponding PCI Card ($179) for my desktop. Compaq, 3Com, Lucent and others also have Wi-Fi-compatible setups comparable to Dell's, which range in price from $100 to $300 per card...