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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mang Cheng who wrote (22874)	10/19/1998 9:57:00 AM
From: Moonray	Respond to of 45548

3Com to Unveil New Software for Sending Voice on Data Networks Santa Clara, California, Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- 3Com Corp. plans to unveil new software that lets corporations and Internet service providers send voice communications over data networks without having to buy new networking equipment. The software is being tested by some of the largest U.S. telecommunications carriers and will be demonstrated at the Networld+Interop trade show in Atlanta next week, said Ross Manire, senior vice president of 3Com's carrier-systems unit. 3Com, the No. 2 computer-networking company, is racing to make products that let companies cut their telecommunication costs by routing long-distance traffic over the Internet. Phone companies and other telecommunication carriers are looking to buy more equipment that uses Internet protocol, or IP, to route voice and data traffic on a network. ''3Com's approach will make it easier to deploy voice-over- IP services,'' said Hilary Mine, an analyst with market researcher Probe Research Inc. of Cedar Knolls, New Jersey. No. 1 Cisco Systems Inc. and smaller rival Ascend Communications Inc. are developing similar products, yet their current technologies require the purchase of new hardware. Ascend, Cisco and 3Com dominate sales of so-called remote access concentrators, which Internet providers use to route incoming Internet calls. The Internet and other so-called packet-based networks, which send communications by breaking it into small packets of data, can be managed more efficiently and for less cost than traditional circuit- based networks. Operation and maintenance costs make up 60 percent to 70 percent of the cost of a telecommunications network, while equipment costs are only 30 percent to 40 percent, Mine said. 3Com's software is designed to be used in networks run by Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT software, a fact which Mine called ''a plus or a minus, depending on who they're selling to.'' While Windows NT is less expensive than the Unix operating system that runs many large networks, some carriers have concerns about its reliability, Mine said. o~~~ O