3Com SA to take convergence on the road

3Com SA is to embark on a nation-wide road show aimed at demonstrating the economic value, productivity gains and competitive business advantages associated with its converged networking technology solutions.

The first afternoon seminar will take place in Johannesburg on the 8th April at Vodaworld, on the 13th April in at The Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town, and on the 15th April in Durban, at The Edward Hotel.

The seminar is targeted at channel partners and end users. Attendees of the seminar will be informed about recent developments in 3Com`s convergence strategy, including the announcement of new alliances and updates on recent mergers, acquisitions and new technologies.

"Convergence, the merging of voice, video and data on a single wire, will provide higher availability networks and empower multimedia applications," says Paul Ruinaard, 3Com`s presales manager. "This enabling technology makes optimum use of the existing infrastructure, ensuring that the bandwidth available is utilised to support new applications that require different types of transmission."

Ruinaard points out that as companies begin to plan for converged network applications, they face many technical challenges, particularly with understanding how these new bandwidth intensive applications will affect their traditional, data-only networks. "The convergence seminar will provide 3Com with the ideal platform to demonstrate its leadership in this newly emerging field," he says.

Enterprises will be able to substantially reduce communications, operations and network management expenses while increasing functionality in a single network, explains Ruinaard. "The simplified administration of the infrastructure means reduced total costs, such as employee expenses, as a need for a range of technical experts in different areas is minimised."

Ruinaard goes on to say that the motivation behind the convergence trend is that it offers a number of advantages for potential applications such as call centres, banks and insurance companies. "Convergence allows a flexible and more scaleable network that greatly enhances productivity and customer service," he adds. "Web-enabled call centres will allow the company to interact more quickly and effectively with partners and clients, thus ensuring that the enterprise is provided with the necessary competitive edge."

3Com recently unveiled its Convergence Leadership Alliance Program, a multi-vendor collaboration to deliver integrated voice/video/data converged network solutions. Ruinaard says that this program will ease customer deployment of combined voice, video and data networks and advanced multimedia applications, to make their businesses more competitive and efficient.

"Alliances with key industry players and proven expertise in developing leading technology solutions, have placed 3Com at the forefront of its drive to deliver converged network applications," says Ruinaard. "3Com has formed a joint partnership with Microsoft to co-develop software for network interface cards and hardware that will accelerate performance for users of Windows 2000. Utilising 3Com network interface cards, will boost network performance up to as much as 10 times."

A further partnership with Siemens is yet another stepping stone for 3Com in the provision of its converged network solution. 3Com and Siemens have developed stackable PABX and are jointly developing solutions on LAN telephony solutions. "These partnerships and other numerous small acquisitions have helped 3Com to provide niche technology and an integrated convergence solution as a global end-to-end player," Ruinaard concludes.