3Com looks to emerging markets

By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist

Johannesburg, 19 May 2009

Global converged services and network solutions provider 3Com is expanding into East Africa with the worldwide release of its two end-to-end network solutions.

The company rolled out two new platforms: the H3C S12500 for end-of-rack in data centres, and the H3C S5800, a flex-chassis switching platform, for wiring closets, smaller network cores and top-of-rack in data centres.

3Com's complete H3C portfolio of products is managed by the H3C Intelligent Management Centre, a single-pane management platform integrating separate management tools.

Derek Wiggill, 3Com Africa's regional sales director, says 3Com is bullish in driving its HC3 brand into the rest of Africa, following its success in China, where it holds 30% market share over its incumbent rival Cisco.

Wiggill says: “HC3 comes from a joint venture we began in 2003 with Huawei and we purchased it completely. The Chinese market is the only market in the world where Cisco isn't the major player and HC3 is.”

Continent of opportunities

“Our business has been strong in the government and small and medium-sized enterprise sectors, and this is our push into the large enterprise space,” says Wiggill.

“Africa is a key market for 3Com. We are expanding into East Africa and looking into the Kenyan market. It's a very hands-on targeted and pragmatic approach. 3Com is looking to make sustained investments into that territory and make it work, from there we move in. Once we've established, there, the process takes nine to 12 months.

“The next move will be into West Africa coming into the Nigerian market. The global launch was on 12 May, but it has been in selected markets since last year. It's been very successful in France and is starting to gain traction in Germany.”

Tough times

Wiggill claims 3Com is using the economic downturn to the benefit of the company as businesses are looking to improve efficiencies and cut costs: “We've chosen now to release the products because people's buying behaviour has changed and it's our opportunity to be highly disruptive in the networking space.

“Power is important, cost-efficiency is important, especially when Eskom wants to hike its tariffs up by 36%. Nobody has the luxury of too much budget right now, and not only are companies forced to do more with less, but it's [the budget] becoming less and less. Consolidating and having centralised data centres is becoming an appealing proposition.”

According to Wiggill, the H3C S12500 switch has a 6.6TB switching fabric, switches 2.2 billion packets per second, and is energy-efficient.

This month, 3Com released its third quarter results for its fiscal 2009. Revenue reached $324.7 million (R2.87 billion) compared to revenue of $336.4 million (R2.97 billion) in the corresponding period in fiscal 2008, a 3.5% decrease.