By Jo Maitland
Wall Street was yesterday putting the name BMC Software Corp next to Spectrum, the network management division which Cabletron Systems has put up for sale. BMC has previously said it intends to go head-to-head with full service management providers Tivoli and CA. However BMC told ComputerWire yesterday that it didn’t make sense for it build out a core network management product and declined to comment on the Wall Street gossip. Nevertheless sources on Wall Street were adamant that some kind of deal is in the pipeline. The news comes only days after John d’Auguste, Cabletron’s president of operations, and Allen Finch, vice president of marketing, resigned and Craig Benson, founder of the company stepped down last week.
Cabletron was once a fierce competitor for the likes of the former Bay Networks and Cisco Systems, but has been relegated to second-tier status of late while competitors shift strategies to tackle the booming market for internet service providers and telecommunications equipment. As one of the last remaining data networking firms of its size, Cabletron is finding it increasingly difficult to stand up to its competition. á
