It may be a 30-year-old company, but 3Com is emphasising both its modern credentials – with its open standards-based portfolio of routers, switches and management platforms – as well as the value for money its products represent.

The company is expanding into New Zealand and Australia, and has recently released both a high-end enterprise switch – the H3C S12500 – and an Intelligent Management Centre (IMC) that is designed to support heterogeneous environments. The IMC also allows for the integration of separate management tools.

The new products are seen as particularly welcome in the present recessionary environment, as they offer similar network performance and features to comparable products from rivals such as Cisco, but at a cheaper price – up to 30 per cent has been cited for some products.

“We are disturbing the industry status quo that emerged during the 2000 downturn, when companies looked for stability in their network suppliers and Cisco in particular supplied that – but at quite a high price,” says 3Com.

Now customers are looking at value for money propositions, as they seek to maximise every dollar. When it comes to network solutions, companies realise that such technology has become ubiquitous – effectively, it’s now a commodity – so cost-conscious CIOs are seeking the best value products, says 3Com.

“It’s similar to what happened with the phone industry, 3Com manufactures in China and so we can produce high-quality products that cost around 30 per cent less than comparable products from other vendors and we are seeing a real flight to value.

It is this 'China out' strategy that has made the H3C products – sold under the 3Com banner - No. 2 in the networking world, says 3Com.

The company is keen to emphasise there is no loss of quality though. The new country manager for 3Com in Australia and New Zealand, Angela Hughes, says the company’s products are “a very sound value proposition”, but their technical excellence also needs to be emphasised.

“When the technical people within organisations see our kit their response is extremely favourable. They see how it performs – or out-performs – against competitors’ equipment.” 

“We ask customers to try it first, and we also look at what they are trying to do with their network,” says Hughes. “They are usually pleasantly surprised with the result.”

Commenting on the new H3C S12500 switch, which delivers 2.2 billion packets per second, and the Intelligent Management Centre, analyst website Current Analysis says the new switch offers high density or high performance, or a combination of both, and is a more competitive offering than rivals’ products.

“3Com has consistently underpriced the competition with its enterprise products and… [with] the H3C portfolio will now need to be taken seriously by all.”

Hughes adds that the fact that the company’s products are open standards-based ensures inter-operability.

She also echoed the analyst’s comment that 3Com’s network products, which include switches, routers, management platforms and wireless products, cover the whole enterprise size range – from SMBs up to large corporates and government departments.

Hughes says two key vertical markets for the company are education and healthcare. For example, Queensland Department of Education is a long-time customer.

H3C is represented in New Zealand by Renaissance.

If you would like more information on H3C’s networking products please click here.

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