SCIENCE

3Com Corporation today announced that it is delivering on its enterprise strategy by shipping as scheduled the 3Com Switch 8800, a Terabit-capacity, enterprise modular core network platform for large-scale, secure convergence and application integration. After dozens of intense yet successful beta trials worldwide ensuring the high quality and reliability of this large enterprise advanced switch, 3Com is also announcing some of its initial Switch 8800 enterprise-class customer wins. "For the vast majority of enterprise customers who demand premium flexibility and secure convergence for their network infrastructure, the new 3Com Switch 8800 is the best Terabit switch in the larger enterprise market today," said Jim Freeze, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, 3Com. "Recognizing how critically important the network is to the operation and success of their business, enterprise customers seek superior business value through their strategic IT investments. A growing number of enterprise customers are selecting 3Com and our large-scale systems for this precise reason. We offer a value proposition that is unparalleled. We help enterprise customers step up to superior business performance, world-class security and the most compelling justification for flexible, large-scale LAN deployments." Customers and Channel Partners Validate 3Com Enterprise Solutions "3Com continues to be our primary choice for enterprise network solutions. The availability of the Switch 8800 is another reason why I trust 3Com to meet my organization's demanding requirements for supporting strategic platforms for the long term," said David Beer, Corporate Connectivity Manager, UK Ministry of Defense, Bristol. "3Com has been there for me and my organization for many years. Each time 3Com proves that it can execute on its plans by shipping an enterprise product, I am reminded that I made the right decision." "The 3Com Switch 8800 is allowing me to migrate our 8,000-employee network from a previous generation and leapfrog to leading-edge campus LAN technology," said Art Jeffords, Manager of Networking and Telecom, Covenant Health. "Yet, even though this is a new product with a lot of attractive bells and whistles, I like the fact that the Switch 8800 shares a common code base as the 3Com Switch 7700, a proven LAN switch platform for enterprise aggregation. Our beta testing of the Switch 8800 validated the reliability of the core product prior to Covenant releasing the purchase order. This was important to me." "3Com provides outstanding secure, converged products for our organization," said Lars Kauz, Networking and Communication Manager, Espace Media Groupe. "The Switch 8800 is worth a long look. It's a very impressive product. We evaluated it against products from Cisco and others, and we evaluated the companies themselves. 3Com gave us the best features and value for our needs, and we felt most comfortable with them as a long-term partner." 3Com delivers the Switch 8800 through authorized reseller partners around the globe. 3Com Gold Partner Unisys Canada has initially targeted the government sector, an opportunity helped by the National Master Standing Offer (NMSO) approved by the Federal Government in Canada that now includes the 3Com Switch 8800. "Switch 8800 hands-on training in January showed us this very competitive switch is ready for prime time," said Pierre Lancelot of Unisys Canada. "Customers are looking for alternatives to the market's dominant manufacturer, and the 8800 has a more current and innovative design and is well positioned on price and performance." Furthermore, a 3Com Gold Partner in Massachusetts won with the switch in a municipal utility company. "As a future-proof core platform, the 3Com Switch 8800 brings so much to the table," said Sean Kelley of CBE Technologies. "With the municipal utility company's new network, our customer can now look to running voice and video, hosting new applications, or expanding down the road." Convergence Platform for Enterprise Applications The 3Com Switch 8800 delivers secure, high-performance connectivity, high availability, dramatic scalability and application-awareness as required by today's demanding enterprise environments. The convergence-ready Switch 8800 platform enables new enterprise-wide application deployments more rapidly and efficiently. Companies can now more elegantly deploy enterprise-wide Internet Protocol (IP) telephony services and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based convergence applications such as the 3Com VCX(TM) IP Telephony, IP Messaging and IP Conferencing modules. 3Com has invested heavily in the "long life" planned for the Switch 8800. 3Com's investment of $160 million in the Huawei-3Com joint venture to build enterprise products is reaping positive results, such as this significant milestone of delivering the largest, most powerful enterprise core infrastructure platform that 3Com has ever offered. The shipping of the Switch 8800 is a proof point for 3Com's corporate strategy to leverage partnerships with superior capabilities for the most effective development and delivery of world-class solutions. The Switch 8800 is built for demanding IT environments. The core switch uses dual load-sharing switch fabrics so that adding resiliency will also double switch performance. The Switch 8800's 1.44 Terabit backplane delivers outstanding speed and port density - initially up to twenty-four 10 Gigabit wirespeed ports and 288 Gigabit wirespeed ports - but can support a second generation fabric and modules to double the switch's performance and capacity. The Switch 8800 is complemented by 10 Gigabit modules for the 3Com Switch 7700 at enterprise network aggregation points and for the 3Com Switch 3870 delivering Gigabit-to-the-desktop at the edge of the network. Analyst firm IDC is projecting double-digit growth each year for 10 Gigabit Ethernet between 2005 and 2009. According to the February 2005 IDC report "Worldwide LAN Switch 2005-2009 Forecast," 10 Gigabit technology is, in general, "moving out of research and supercomputing environments and into high-end data centers - and even the aggregation layer." For years, 3Com has steadily been developing new enterprise-class solutions and investing in the capabilities to offer business customers superior business value and differentiated products and services. 3Com enhances the enterprise customer experience through advanced large enterprise services that ease deployment and give customers more control of their networks. The Switch 8800 Service Package supports the new high-end enterprise LAN infrastructure solution. Additional 3Com service offerings available through 3Com Global Services to support the Switch 8800 include a Network Health Check, and in-depth training on switch architecture and troubleshooting. "Through 3Com's Network Health Check report and the services provided by 3Com Global Services, we have obtained the information required to set the direction for our future network growth. The Network Health Check report played a vital role in the successful network migration of the university's network, which we are very pleased with," said Mr.Min Su Jong, Network Administrator, WonKwang University in Korea. "For a network administrator responsible for all of a campus network, it is a challenge to implement a new core switch in a campus network. But because of 3Com services, we had minimal network downtime. Also, because of the combination of product and service that gave us a highly valued solution, we feel proud that we made the right decision," said Mr.Park Jong Ha from Kyonggi University in Korea.