Polycom Inc.  (PLCM) Trade Now »     Rate PLCM  -  Discuss PLCM  -  Add to Watch List        

Polycom (PLCM) shares are trading lower after hours on slightly disappointing Q3 results.

For the quarter, revenues were $243 million, up from $231 million in Q2, but down from $276 million a year ago, while ahead of the Street at $236.4 million. But non-GAAP EPS of 31 cents a share was a penny below Street expectations.

Note that gross margin in the quarter of 58.8% was down from 60.2% a year ago.

In late trading, the videoconferencing company is down 97 cents, or 3.7%, to $25.40.

Polycom (PLCM) shares this morning are taking a breather from their recent speculative run, after Wedbush Morgan analyst Rohit Chopra cut his rating on the videoconferencing equipment provider to Neutral from Outperform.

Rumors of the death of the rumor mill are not true.

Analysts are still combing through the implications of Cisco Systems’s (CSCO) announcement yesterday it will spend $3 billion to buy Tandberg, a Norwegian maker of video-conferencing systems.

For Polycom (PLCM), there are two schools of thinking on how the company will be affected by the news that Cisco (CSCO) will spend $3 billion to buy Tandberg, Polycom’s chief rival in the video conferencing business. On the one hand, it gives PLCM scarcity value, as the only real pure play in the sector, and the obvious place to turn for any customers who don’t want to turn to Cisco. But on the other hand, their chief competitor morphs from Norway-based Tandberg to networking giant Cisco. And that could be a bit of a problem.