BEA has a chance to become the gorilla of e-commerce software it already has a leading position. Despite the slowdown in other corporate software, BEA has achieved 13 straight quarters of rising sales. On an adjusted basis, net was five cents a share in the quarter. Cabletron was not far behind Cisco five years ago. Now Cisco has six times the sales and more than 100 times the market cap.
Consistency is rewarded.
While Cisco delivered steadily higher sales and earnings, Cabletron s sales have been little better than flat for the last three years while earnings plunged. Both companies make networking gear routers, switches and other equipment. But Cabletron stuck with its core business of large corporate networking customers while Cisco was quicker to develop both new products and new customers. Among other problems, Cabletron has run into the same slowdown in corporate spending that is affecting the enterprise software stocks. But that market should improve and, more important, the company is finally moving to broaden its reach.