3Com taps Claflin as president, Chief Operating Officer
IBM, DEC exec named to new position to run day-to-day operations; Benhamou says he'll stay.
By Jim Duffy
Network World Fusion, 7/16/98
Santa Clara, Calif. - 3Com Corp. today announced the appointment of former Digital Equipment Corp. executive Bruce Claflin, a 25-year industry veteran, to the newly created position of president and chief operating officer.
Claflin, who will assume the post on Aug. 10, will oversee 3Com's $5.4 billion worldwide networking operations. He will be responsible for the sales and marketing of the company's Large Enterprise, Small-to-Medium-Enterprise, Carrier Systems and Client Access business units.
3Com had kept its executive management team at the same size since its merger with U.S. Robotics Corp. in June 1997, which doubled the number of employees and increased revenue by 78%, the company said. But 3Com has restructured its customer markets, creating the need for an additional executive to coordinate cross-divisional initiatives and focus internal and external relations, 3Com Chairman and CEO Eric Benhamou said in a prepared statement.
Claflin will report directly to Benhamou.
As Chairman and CEO, Benhamou will continue to steer the company's strategic, financial and technology directions, public policy, partnerships and customer relationships. Functions that will continue to report directly to Benhamou include finance, long-range technology direction and business development, which includes new business investments and initiatives, strategic partnerships and Palm Computing, a subsidiary of 3Com.
Benhamou said Claflin's appointment was not a move to groom his successor and has no immediate plans to step down as 3Com CEO.
"We're one of the very few Fortune 300 companies that did not have this position formerly in place and now we do," Benhamou said. "This is one of the steps that will enable us to continue to grow and become yet a large organization."
After 25 years in the systems business, Claflin said he can carry several disciplines over to the networking industry. From the PC industry, those disciplines include fast development time, low-cost products, rapid time to market, continued technology churn, and supply chain and distribution channel management.
"These are all characteristics that differentiate in the PC industry, and I'd argue they're very important in many segments of the networking industry," Claflin said.
Claflin said he also understands how to do business internationally, and has experience in various segments of the hardware industry. He owes that knowledge to IBM, where he spent 22 of his 25 years and became well-versed in IBM's Systems Network Architecture, which is very hardware reliant.
"SNA's time has long gone past, but in the early days, it was a well-structured, architected set of solutions in a data environment for the enterprise," Claflin said. "Those experiences will carry over as well."
The industry convergence on IP as the next dial tone also attracted Claflin to 3Com, he said. Claflin said he will help Benhamou carry forward 3Com's partnership with telecom giant Siemens AG and forge other alliances.
"Those companies who have the resources, the skill and the will to capitalize (on convergence) I think can have enormous changes in their market position," Claflin said. "3Com, to me, is one of those companies."
3Com's biggest challenge going forward will be to capitalize on its market position and opportunity, Claflin said.
"3Com has historically been a very high-growth company and I think will need to continue to be," he said. "This industry is going to require people that are fast on their feet, willing to take risk and are able to capitalize on it. The single greatest overarching goal is to achieve very high rates of growth in the markets we target."
Claflin most recently served as senior vice president and group executive of Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Digital, where he led a global organization of 12,000 employees with $13 billion in revenue responsibility.
Previously at Digital, Claflin was vice president and general manager of the company's Personal Computer Business Unit where he built a profitable $2.5 billion enterprise-focused PC business.
Following Compaq Computer Corp.'s acquisition of Digital, Claflin reportedly turned down an executive management post at the PC giant because he did not want to relocate to Houston. Yet Claflin will relocate to Santa Clara.
Claflin joined Digital from IBM, where he was responsible for the company's product management and brand efforts for its global PC business, and was president of IBM/PC Company/Americas. As general manager of IBM's worldwide mobile computing business, Claflin was responsible for the introduction of the ThinkPad notebook PC.
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