coms 1984 2010 1 industry computer network products fate acquired by hewlett packard successor hewlett packard founded 1979 founder robert metcalfe and others defunct april 12 2010 website www.3com.com 3com corporation was a digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products . the company was co founded in 1979 by robert metcalfe howard charney bruce borden and greg shaw and recruited bill krause from hewlett packard to be its president in february 1981 when it raised its first round of venture capital . metcalfe has explained that he came up with the name 3com as a contraction of computer communication compatibility 2 with its focus on deploying the ethernet technology that he had co invented which enabled the networking of computers . 3com provided network interface controllers and switches routers wireless access points and controllers ip voice systems and intrusion prevention systems . the company was based in santa clara calif. usa . from its 2007 acquisition of 100 percent ownership of h3c technologies co. limited h3c initially a joint venture with china based huawei technologies 3com achieved a leading market presence in china and a significant networking market share in europe asia and the americas . citation needed 3com products were sold under the brands 3com h3c and tippingpoint . on april 12 2010 hewlett packard completed the acquisition of 3com . 3 since the acquisition 3com has been fully absorbed by hewlett packard and no longer exists as a separate entity . contents 1 history 1.1 before 3com parc 1.2 founding and early days 1979 1996 1.3 1997 2000 1.4 2001 and beyond 1.5 acquisition by hp 2 products 2.1 acquisitions 2.2 former subsidiaries 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit before 3com parc edit after reading an article on alohanet bob metcalfe became interested in the topic of computer networking . alohanet was an over the air wide area network system in hawaii using uhf radios and made several assumptions that metcalfe thought would not be correct in practice . he developed his own theories of how to manage traffic and began to consider an alohanet in a wire networking system . in 1972 he joined xerox parc to develop these ideas and after pairing up with david boggs the two had early 3 mbit s versions of ethernet working in 1973 . they then went on to build up a networking protocol known as parc universal packet pup with the entire system ready for build out by late 1974 . 4 at this point xerox management did nothing with it even after being approached by prospective customers . increasingly upset by management s lack of interest metcalfe left xerox in 1975 but was lured back again the next year . further development followed resulting in the seminal xerox network systems xns protocol which was completed by 1978 . once again metcalfe found management was unwilling to actually do anything with the product and threatened to leave . nothing followed and in 1979 he left the company . 4 founding and early days 1979 1996 edit metcalfe subsequently co founded 3com in 1979 . 3com began making ethernet adapter cards for many early 1980s computer systems including the dec lsi 11 dec vax 11 and the ibm pc . in the mid 1980s 3com branded their ethernet technology as etherseries while introducing a range of software and pc based equipment to provide shared services over a local area network lan using xns protocols . these protocols were branded ethershare for file sharing etherprint for printing ethermail for email and ether 3270 for ibm host emulation . the company s network software products included 3 share file and printer sharing . 3 mail e mail . 3 remote for routing xns over a pc serial port . netconnect for routing xns between ethernets . multiconnect was a chassis based multi port 10base2 ethernet repeater . 3server a server grade pc for running 3 services . 3station a diskless workstation . 3 open file and printer sharing based on microsoft s lan manager . etherterm terminal emulation . etherprobe lan analysis software . dynamicaccess software products for ethernet load balancing response time and rmon ii distributed monitoring . 3com 3c509bc etherlink iii ethernet nic from mid 1990s with 10base2 15 pin aui and 10base t connectors . 3com s expansion beyond its original base of pc and thin ethernet products began in 1987 when it merged with bridge communications . this provided a range of equipment based on motorola 68000 processors and using xns protocols compatibly with 3com s etherterm pc software . cs 1 cs 200 communication servers terminal servers ethernet bridges and xns routers gs 1 x. 25 x. 25 gateway cs 1 sna sna gateway ncs 1 network control software running on a sun microsystems computer by 1995 3com s status was such that they were able to enter into an agreement with the city of san francisco to pay 900 000 per year for the naming rights to candlestick park . that agreement ended in 2002 . 1997 2000 edit 3com ethernet modem pcmcia card in 1997 3com merged with usrobotics usr a maker of dial up modems and owner of palm inc. . usrobotics was known for its sportster line of consumer oriented modems as well as its courier business class modem line . this ill advised merger spelled the beginning of the end of 3com . in addition to consumer network electronics usrobotics was a well known manufacturer of a highly regarded dialup access server the total control hub rebadged by 3com as the total control 1000 based largely on its courier modem technology . this key business product competed against cisco s as5200 access server line in the mid 1990s as the explosion of the internet led to service provider investment in dialup access server equipment . 3com continued the development of the total control line until it was eventually spun off as a part of commworks which was then acquired by utstarcom . 5 in august 1998 bruce claflin was named chief operations officer . the modem business was rapidly shrinking . 3com attempted to enter the dsl business but was not successful . in the lucrative server network interface card business 3com dominated market share with intel only able to break past 3com after dramatic price slashing maneuvers . it started developing gigabit ethernet cards in house but later scrapped the plans . later it formed a joint venture with broadcom where broadcom would develop the main asic component and the nic would be 3com branded . in 1999 3com acquired nbx a boston company with an ethernet based phone system for small and medium sized businesses . this product proved popular with 3com s existing distribution channel and saw rapid growth and adoption . as one of the first companies to deliver a complete networked phone system and increased its distribution channel with larger telephony partners such as southwestern bell and metropark communications 3com helped make voip into a safe and practical technology with wide adoption . 3com tried to move into the smart consumer appliances business and on june 2000 3com acquired internet radio startup kerbango for us 80 million . it developed its audrey appliance which made an appearance on the oprah winfrey show . it scrapped the audrey and kerbango products less than a year later . in march 2000 in a highly public and criticized move 3com exited the high end core routers and switch market to focus on other areas of the business . 6 the corebuilder ethernet and atm lan switches pathbuilder and netbuilder wan routers were all discontinued june 2000 . corebuilder products and the customer base was migrated over to extreme networks . the pathbuilder and netbuilder were transitioned to motorola . 3com focused its efforts from 2000 to 2003 on building up the homeconnect officeconnect superstack nbx and total control product lines . due to this perceived exit from the enterprise market 3com would never gain momentum with large customers or carriers again . in july 2000 3com spun off palm as an independent company . after the ipo 3com still owned 80 % of palm but 3com s market capitalization was smaller than palm s. u.s. robotics was also spun out again as a separate company at this time . 2001 and beyond edit in january 2001 claflin became chief executive officer replacing eric benhamou ceo from 1990 to 2000 . he was criticized for the costly diversification in the mobile handheld computer market . at this point the company s main cash cow the network interface card business was also shrinking rapidly mainly because the functionality was integrated into the southbridge of many motherboards . the company started slashing or selling divisions and going through numerous rounds of layoffs . the company went from employing more than 12 000 employees to fewer than 2 000 . in may 2003 the company moved its silicon valley santa clara headquarters to marlborough massachusetts . it also formed a venture called h3c with huawei whereby 3com would sell and rebrand products under the joint venture . in 2003 3com sold its commworks corporation subsidiary to utstarcom inc. commworks was based in rolling meadows illinois and developed wireline telecommunications and wireless infrastructure technologies . in january 2006 claflin announced he would be leaving the company . in january 2006 r scott murray became ceo of 3com and chairman of h3c technology in china a joint venture with huawei technology . murray voluntarily resigned from the company in august 2006 over his concerns about the questionable business ethics of huawei and potential cyber security risks posed by huawei . edgar masri returned to 3com to head as president and ceo following murray s departure . in september 2007 bain capital agreed to buy the company for 2.2 billion with minority equity financing from huawei technologies . however the deal met with u.s. government regulatory opposition and it fell through early in 2008 following concerns over huawei s risk of conducting cyber security threats against the united states government and its allies huawei s former dealings in iran and huawei being operated by a former general in china s people s liberation army . 7 8 edgar masri left the company in april 2008 partially as a result of the failed bain transaction . in april 2008 robert mao was named chief executive officer and ron sege made president and chief operating officer . 9 in fiscal year 2008 ended may 30 2008 3com had annual revenue of 1.3 billion and more than 6 000 employees in over 40 countries . in september 2008 3com reported financial results for its fiscal 2009 first quarter which ended august 29 2008 . revenue in the quarter was 342.7 million compared to revenue of 319.4 million in the corresponding period in fiscal 2008 a 7 percent increase . net income in the quarter was 79.8 million or 0.20 per diluted share compared with a net loss of 18.7 million or 0.05 per share in the first quarter of fiscal year 2008 . 10 the company reported it had more than 2 700 engineers with more than 1 400 u.s. and nearly 180 chinese issued patents more than 1050 pending chinese applications as well as pending applications for 35 separate inventions outside of china that cover a wide range of networking technologies . acquisition by hp edit on november 11 2009 3com and hewlett packard announced that hewlett packard would acquire 3com for 2.7 billion in cash . 11 on april 12 2010 hewlett packard completed its acquisition of 3com corporation at a price of 7.90 per share in cash or an enterprise value of approximately 2.7 billion . 3 products edit main article 3com products the common 3com 3c905 tx 10 100 pci network interface controller fixed configuration ethernet switches including stackable switches 3com brand gigabit switches switch 5500g 4800g 4500g