There is a trade off with being the beneficiary of pork spending - you are no longer in total control of what you do with your products/services. I find it comforting that the U.S. govt. hasn't completely sold out and become a privatized institution.

That would explain why 3com was working so hard to spin off the tipping point line of business. It will be interesting to see if that initiative continues after this little bombshell.

Since the US government's networks are so wide open and prone to being hacked again and again, I don't see why the deal would be blocked because of TippingPoint. What the government nutters should do is dump TippingPoint and kick the NSA's ass into gear to provide real network security.

If we give the Chinese TippingPoint, then surely we can hack their networks like they hack ours.

Or... Bain weren't going to put up their own money and the current mess on Wall St means they can't finance their side of the deal?

Or... 3Com is more of a mess than Huawei realised. I don't understand what Huawei sees in 3Com. They should have bought Procket Networks, it would have cost less and got them a real router.

Or... Cisco's lobbying finally worked.

Have you heard of Halliburton?