3Com Last Chance Complaint

3Com (COMS), which is in the process of being swallowed up whole by Hewlett Packard (HPQ), issued a very bare bones Q2 earnings release and did not hold a conference call. The official logic would be why bother, the acquisition is about to happen. But as they are about to be acquired they manage to report increased gross margins of some 60.1% up from 57.3 percent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, and 56.3 percent in second quarter of fiscal year 2009. These improvement are normally worthy of much applause and executive bonuses. The question shareholders need to ask is why where these improvements possible in the last minute. Did the valuation with HP take this into consideration? Watch for HP to bury the 3Com numbers into their segmentations so that vending shareholders will never know.