Up for grabs, Tongues wag over potential Bellcore sale >BY Beth Snyder, Associate Editor-News

The rumor mill cranked up last week, with speculation swirling around the possible impending sale of Bellcore, the Bell regional holding companies' jointly owned research arm.

A Wall Street Journal article started the free-for-all, citing "people familiar with the matter" who reportedly said that San Diego-based Science Application International Corp. was close to buying Bellcore for $700 million.

Bellcore and SAIC officials aren't saying much, each claiming no deal has been made. However, at least one connection exists between the two companies: At the National Fiber Optics Engineers Conference in Denver, Bellcore demonstrated new Sonet interoperability software with German partner Danet GmbH. SAIC owns a 44% stake in Danet. Of course, one connection does not a deal make.

"It's all pretty speculative at this point," said Bob Fox, a director at Mercer Management Group's Boston office. However, SAIC is very adept at figuring out ways to get products into applications, Fox said. It would make a worthy fit with the software, hardware and networking talent pool at Bellcore, he said.

Other newspaper and magazine accounts were divided-either the SAIC deal is done or suitors are still kicking the tires at Bellcore.

Either way, Bellcore itself doesn't have a lot of say in what happens. The board, made up of one representative from each of the RHC owners, must vote 7-0 to sell.