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


To: Moonray who wrote (26186)12/16/1998 11:57:00 PM
From: joe  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 45548
 

Oil experts warn of oil price spikes after raids
By David Brinkerhoff

Message 6870609

I was surprised to see that IRAQ still produces 3% of the
world's oil.

Interesting discussion about oil meeting coming up in Madrid
on Thursday. The world oil chiefs want to reduce production
by 4%, so it looks like they would get what they want. The
only problem is that it will probably cause the other producers
to just increase output.

Also, I think this US attack will be a 2-3 day event. The
technology they're using now is even more accurate than
what was used in '91. So, who knows how much oil will
be disrupted. The air strikes, I would think are mainly aimed at military operational facilities. I don't think it's a war scenario
type attack where, bridges, TV, radio, utilities, energy
reserves, etc. get bombed out.

I think the result will be the same old sh*tty IRAQ minus
a whole lot of palaces and military installations and bomb
development sites. The
more Sadam waits, the more all his military resources get
hallowed out. Of course, I always wonder if he has
a few installations that are about 1/4 of a mile underground<g>.

j



To: Moonray who wrote (26186)12/17/1998 2:09:00 AM
From: Mang Cheng  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 45548
 
"3Com revs up new switch"

By Jim Duffy
Network World, 12/14/98

San Francisco - 3Com will soon announce a scaled-down
version of the CoreBuilder 9000, the company's
top-of-the-line Gigabit Ethernet and ATM switch.

The new seven-slot switch follows 3Com's September
introduction of the first version of the CoreBuilder 9000,
a 16-slot offering designed for backbone networks and
data centers. The new version is for use in wiring closets
connecting up to about 200 nodes, according to 3Com
officials at the company's Networks3 user conference
here last week.

Currently, 3Com's wiring closet products consist mainly
of stackable SuperStack II switches. But the company
says its new chassis-based switch provides more ports
and more high-speed workgroup-to-backbone
connectivity options.

"It's pretty nice for a high-density wiring closet," says
Kurtis Lindemann, network specialist at the College of
Business at Ohio State University in Columbus, which is
among the select 3Com accounts already using the new
switch. The school has packed its seven-slot switches
with 36-port 10/ 100M bit/sec modules and Gigabit
Ethernet uplinks.

Lindemann says that with the smaller CoreBuilder 9000
box, users won't have to pay for a redundant switching
fabric, as they would with the 16-slot version. However,
seven-slot chassis customers will still get redundant
power supplies and management modules. The downside
is if users want to expand to two switching fabrics, they
can't, he says.

"It isn't really designed for core, ultraredundant
applications," says Duncan Potter, 3Com director of
product management for switching systems.

For packet networks, the seven-slot CoreBuilder 9000
features a 120G bit/sec backplane. Six of its slots can be
used for switching modules - the same Ethernet, Fast
Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and ATM modules used by the
16-slot CoreBuilder 9000 - and the seventh slot houses
the switch fabric. Two slots can be used for management
and controller redundancy.

The seven-slot chassis will support ATM core switching
configurations in the first quarter of 1999, Potter says.
As an ATM switch, it will support dual-homing for
redundant connectivity between workgroups and
backbones, 3Com says.

For Layer 2 applications, the seven-slot CoreBuilder 9000
will go up against Cisco's new Catalyst 4000 and a stack
of Nortel Networks' BayStack 450s. For Layer 3
requirements, the 3Com switch will vie against Cisco's
Catalyst 5500 and 8510, Cabletron's SmartSwitch Router
2000 and Nortel's Accelar 1050. Nortel is also expected
to unveil new chassis-based wiring closet switches early
next year.

Modules for the seven-slot CoreBuilder 9000 include two-
and nine-port Layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet, 20-port Layer 2
10/100Base-TX autosensing, and new 36-port Layer 2
10/100Base-TX and 10-port Layer 2 100Base-FX cards.
The Gigabit Ethernet modules are optimized for backbone
and server aggregation, while the Fast Ethernet cards are
designed for high-performance desktops and
workgroups, server connectivity and downlinks to
backbone switches.

The 36-port module will ship in volume next month,
while the 10-port module will ship in February.

In late February, 3Com will release Layer 3 Fast Ethernet
modules for the seven- and 16-slot CoreBuilder 9000s.
One will be a 12-port 10/ 100Base-TX card and the other
will be a 10-port 100Base-FX module.

3Com will also roll out high-density Layer 3 Gigabit
Ethernet modules for the CoreBuilder 9000 line in the
second half of 1999, 3Com officials say.

Six-port FDDI cards for the CoreBuilder 9000 line will be
delivered in the second half of 1999. In addition, the
company is developing modules with single-mode fiber
and SONET-based interfaces, Potter says.

Pricing for the sevenslot CoreBuilder 9000 will be
comparable to the 16-slot version and other vendors'
offerings: about $250 to $300 per Fast Ethernet port and
$2,500 for Gigabit Ethernet.

3Com can be reached at (408) 326-5000.

Senior Editor Jeff Caruso contributed to this story.

nwfusion.com

Mang