and it had the interesting news that Kevin Kennedy was leaving. Interesting but not that much... sure Kevin heralds originally from Cisco and has a tremendous background...but if you take into consideration that he's also CEO of Avaya..well...I can certainly understand him wanting to spend all of his time focusing on making sure Avaya is competing as hard as it can against Cisco.
But, If you read the following SEC filing:
you'd read that Mike & Bob just updated their golden parachute clauses.
Each not really alot interesting on their own...but here's my guess. Kevin had to quit from the board because 1. Avaya is in talks to merge with Tandberg 2. Avaya is in talks to merge with Polycom. or 3. Polycom is about to merge with a competitor to Avaya.
I've mentioned before that I expected Avaya to merge with Tandberg and I still see merit to that happening...but why would Bob & Mike change their golden parachutes? do they suspect that if Avaya merges with TAA then it will put Polycom in play? or is Polycom already in play?
I'm not sure who would buy Polycom...
They previously had spoken to Cisco but turned Cisco down. I know they came very close just a couple of years ago to be purchased by Nokia...but they turned that offer down too. I can't see it being Nortel...they have too many issues. I can't see it being Alcatel/Lucent...too many issues. Siemens? doubtful. Maybe its Microsoft? Not exactly their thing to buy a hardware company...but if MS was to compete with Cisco in the UC space, they'll need some hardware.
I'm not sure..but I do know that PLCM does own a lot of IP and has many patents. They have cash in the bank and no debt. The stock price is below what it was when I joined the company back in 2003 (it was 14 back then). Their market cap is $1.07B!!! Being even that they've lost tons of market share... they're worth more than $1.07B. The balance sheet shows total equity (total assets - total liabilities) as $941M. ($281M just in cash) Heck...you could buy Polycom, fire eveyone, sell all of the assets, and just about break even. Then start working selling off the 500+ patents...or, even better, become a Patent Leasing company and just work out licening agreements.
Or maybe its just all coincidental....
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I think your hit to MSFT is spot on. They are making a big push in the UC world and would love to have those PLCM phones. But you are right, I think that its not their way to buy a HW company.
Now, I still think Cisco is in play for PLCM. They get board room endpoints to fill in their offering and they get a decent bridge. But hey like you said it could all be a coinky dink
Honestly, Polycom's bridges are not that great. They have tons of design and quality issues. And I'm sure that Cisco has vetted that out. Besides... Cisco just brought out their new Media server. The first appplication is for transcoding of non-realtime media..but I've heard rumors that they will release MCU code for it.
With Nortel going BK, maybe MSFT is looking for a more stable UC partner? I think Cisco is coming out with their own stuff, IMHO. But if they wanted to buy a VC company, why not Lifesize, from an M&A point of view, it's lean and mean, while Polycom has a lot of baggage. Avaya is a possibility what with KK now running the show there.
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