Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Starduster who wrote (30783)	5/11/1999 11:14:00 AM
From: Richard P. Roberts	Respond to of 45548

3COMS UNSUNG WIRELESS PARTNER LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, U.S.A., 1999 MAY 10 (NB) -- By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. 3Com Corp. [NASDAQ:COMS] reaped lots of news coverage late last week by announcing it will enter the wireless networking market. Today, however, Newsbytes has learned that much of 3Com's upcoming wireless technology will come from the 10-year wireless LAN veteran firm Symbol Technologies [NYSE:SBL] (ST). ST said today that many components in the planned 3Com-branded wireless networks were developed in a collaborative effort started by the two firms last fall. John Hughes, ST's director of network systems product marketing, shrugged off questions about the lack of technical credit given by 3Com's announcement. "What's important," he told Newsbytes, "is that it seems like finally, after years of vertical market use, we're catching up to what Ethernet once meant. Wireless is a full-blown 11 megabits per second (Mbps) now, based on the 802.11 standard. That means there will be more vendors, more products and much wider distribution. That means it will spread into horizontal not just vertical markets." The standard to which Hughes refers is the forthcoming IEEE 802.11 High Rate (HR) standard, which vendors can use to combine wireless data transfer, Ethernet speed, secure data transmission and simple configuration on a fully standardized platform. According to Tomo Razmilovic, president and chief operating officer at ST, the collaboration of 3Com and ST taps ST's long experience with wireless LAN and mobile computing solutions and 3Com's global support for convergence between data, voice and multimedia over wireless networks. At Networld+Interop, set to open tomorrow in Las Vegas, 3Com plans to introduce its first branded wireless net, the high-speed 3Com AirConnect enterprise product. ST says it plans to demonstrate its own branded 11Mbps direct sequence offering as the Spectrum24 solution set. What both firms envision is an increasingly affordable networking system that bypasses the need for wires and cables entirely, unlike the more broadly publicized home phone line systems being pushed by Tut Systems and others. Other systems like power line networks and traditional Ethernet also need wires to connect network components. Hughes predicts a growing market for wireless networks over the next year, as components come down in price. He says the wireless approach ultimately has some killer advantages over wired approaches -- most notably, the mobility of a wireless connected device. Says Hughes, "I'd like to be able to hang out on the couch with my kids and still be in touch with my boss, my colleagues. I'd like to not have to think about it." Symbol Technologies has a site on the World Wide Web at symbol.com . Reported by Newsbytes News Network, newsbytes.com .