December 10, 2006
3Com: Back from the Brink? Sometimes, being the underdog is no fun at all. According to The Motley Fool, 3Com was among the 50 worst performing stocks of the past 10 years. Despite pioneering the Ethernet market, 3Com lost its focus in the late 1990s, briefly abandoned the enterprise and upset plenty of VARs along the way. More recently, Wall Street has wondered if 3Com paid too much to gain full control of a joint venture in China.
Admittedly, The VAR Guy has been bearish on 3Com. But that began to change when he spoke Dec. 8 with Nick Tidd, the networking company's VP of worldwide channels. Tidd is an eternal optimist, and he makes a pretty compelling case that 3Com is making progress rebuilding its channel.
"We actually held focus groups with our bitter partners to help us build our new partner program from scratch," Tidd recalled. "Our challenge over the last few years was...we were not a price leader and we were not a technology leader. Now's an exciting time because [new CEO] Edgar [Masri] brings technical perspective to the situation."
Tidd noted that 3Com is gaining momentum with its unified switch and TippingPoint intrusion prevention platform. And a partnership with IBM should generate significant revenue in the first half of 2007. The deal calls for solutions providers to sell IBM servers running 3Com's IP telephony software. Several customers are already beta testing the system.
Still, Tidd admitted that challenges remain. "We need to show consistency," he conceded. "VARs need to know that we're not going to discontinue products or do an about-face. We need to execute on the programs we've launched."
In recent months, some channel publications have boldly stated that they are High on 3Com. The VAR Guy wouldn't go that far. 3Com is still losing money. In stark contrast, Cisco's quarterly net income now tops $1.9 billion.
But maybe that's not the point. Instead of worrying about Cisco, 3Com is finally focused its partners, customers and R&D. And having IBM in the company's corner could certainly be the start of something good.
Feedback: Send your observations to thevarguy@techiqmag.com.
|
