The 'new 3Com' shows its Asia credentials

Database News - Wednesday December 12, 2007

NETWORKING / RESTRUCTURING 3COM

The 'new 3Com' shows its Asia credentials

SASIWIMON BOONRUANG

Hangzhou, China - Networking vendor 3Com's three key focus areas will be its product portfolio, financial success and customer and partner relationships, according to 3Com senior vice president and general manager Bob Dechant, who was addressing a partner event in Hangzhou, China, recently.

Dechant claimed that 3Com was well-positioned to provide security for converged networks. Stressing that the "new 3Com" was one company comprising three business units - the legacy 3Com business, H3C for emerging technologies and TippingPoint for security - Dechant said that, as a result, the company could claim a leadership position in Asia Pacific.

3Com is in the top three in terms of market share in the categories of stackable switching, modular switching and routers.

"H3C has spent a lot of time pushing IP technology, IP storage, IP video surveillance, metro Ethernet, and IP TV and our strategy is to push those into this market in China and bring them into the rest of the world," he said.

Commenting on competitors' claims that 3Com faced a financial problem, Dechant remarked that the company has made significant improvements in its financial performance, with a growth in annual revenue of US$1.3 billion and a plan to become a $2 billion company by the year 2011.

"The 3Com acquisition by Bain Capital for US$2.2 billion in cash will benefit 3Com customers, employees and partners because it allows 3Com to accelerate its business model and integrate its business," Dechant said, adding that 25% of investments made by Bain were in the technology and telecom sectors.

In addition, a partnership with Huawei - which holds a 16.5% share in 3Com and is a commercial and strategic partner - was very important because H3C products were sold through Huawei channels.

3Com, meanwhile, announced an enhancement of its 3Com Partner Programme that it expects will deliver more benefits to its partners in Asia.

Enhancements to the programme include integration of H3C switching products into the 3Com partner program infrastructure, and rewards for partners who sell 3Com products targeted at small businesses. Newly joined partners will have access to online training tools that will provide them with more 3Com resources.

Peter Chai, 3Com vice president and general manager (Asia Pacific), said that following the integration of 3Com and H3C Technologies in July this year, H3C was ideally positioned as a strategic unit of 3Com targeting the large enterprise market. He said that having H3C partners integrated into the partner programme allowed for advanced solutions like IP storage, IP surveillance and the soon to be launched Multiple Services Router (MSR) to be brought to customers in Asia faster.

Chai noted that the small business market accounts for 35% of 3Com's sales in Asia Pacific and including the small business product lines in the Partner Programme will have an immediate effect in streamlining its SMB solutions.

He also pointed to 3Com's new Global Services and Support infrastructure, which brings all critical customer care issues back in-house. 3Com's customers in the small, medium and large enterprise space will be able to experience better pre-sales, deployment and post-sales support and solution availability, Chai said.

The company has invested around US$12 million in its new global service and support system and staff worldwide. Headcount additions for the new team include seven in 3Com's Sydney office to complement existing Asia Pacific and field-based engineers.

The multi-lingual call centre team today provides service in four languages: English, Chinese (Mandarin), Korean and Thai.

Currently, Asia Pacific is the largest revenue contributing region for 3Com, with 53% of its total, while Europe/Middle East/Africa accounts for 22%, North America 19%, and Latin & South America 6%.

"Not many technology companies can say that the major revenue contributed is by the Asia Pacific region," Dechant noted. "We are committed to the region by investing in customer relationships, R&D in China and India, investing in technical support operations in Manila and Hangzhou, as well as having key corporate functions in Singapore, Hangzhou and Beijing," he said.

Bangkok Post