Survey shows 3Com meets growing demand for e-Networks

With e-commerce emerging as the key business strategy for the new millenium, momentum is building for businesses of all kinds to deploy networks that upgrade their internal operations and connections to the outside world. Supporting this trend, hundreds of business enterprises recently surveyed at 3Com Corporation`s annual user group meeting said they are getting ready for e-business.

According to the results of the survey, over 500 3Com customers, such as large commercial businesses, government and educational institutions, are planning to roll out new technologies to support online business in the next-generation networked economy, reports 3Com SA`s product marketing manager, Gavin Levin. "The customers surveyed represent a sample of the thousands of organisations worldwide that rely on 3Com as their primary network vendor."

The survey, taken at 3Com`s annual Networks3 Americas users conference, held November 1 - 4 in Chicago, showed that 49 percent of 3Com`s enterprise customers are planning to deploy new e-commerce solutions within the next 18 months to help support business requirements and extend their reach to both customers and suppliers.

An additional 24 percent of 3Com customers surveyed are already implementing e-commerce solutions based on 3Com`s broad line of e-Networking systems.

"We chose 3Com because 3Com`s vision of e-commerce matched our own vision. That has been rare to find," says Norman Thomas, vice president of information systems at U.S. Xpress, the fifth largest publicly held trucking company in the United States. "We feel that 3Com is the only one that can do what they do with e-Networks and U.S. Xpress has found a strong partner in 3Com."

U.S. Xpress is one of the many 3Com customers surveyed at the November meeting who are currently moving forward with major network infrastructure and application deployments geared toward e-business.

In particular, U.S. Xpress is deploying state-of-the-art applications such as instantaneous shipment tracking for customers, satellite-transmitted information to technology-enabled trucks and initiating shipping orders via the U.S. Express Web site - all based on a 3Com e-Network.

3Com`s recently announced e-Networks strategy meets enterprise customer demand for:

• comprehensive support for voice, video and data applications;

• a broader range of products allowing people to access those applications via the Internet, intranets or extanets;

• and comprehensive systems for ensuring network reliability/availability.

Levin says that this approach to networking meets the needs of an entire e-business enterprise by supporting applications critical to internal operations, supply chain management and customer-to-business or business-to-business relationships.

Customers Deploying More LAN Bandwidth, Moving Toward Converged Voice-Data and Virtual Private Networks

The top requirement of 3Com customers over the next year is to overcome current bandwidth (performance) constraints on their local area networks (LANs), a sentiment echoed by 52 percent of those surveyed. 3Com`s current e-Networking solutions specifically address this issue by offering high-speed Gigabit Ethernet over fiber networks and multilayer switching technology.

New 3Com technologies planned for next year will enable enterprises to run Gigabit Ethernet over their legacy installed copper cabling.

"In speaking with customers it has become clear that increasing bandwidth to drive complex applications across the LAN has become the top priority of network managers," says Edgar Masri, senior vice president of 3Com`s Network Systems Business Unit. "3Com`s e-Networks strategy addresses this and provides an overall infrastructure for more cost-effective, secure wide area access and modern policy-based network management."

Fifty percent of the customers surveyed are planning to embrace wireless LAN technology with the next 18 months. This new technology enables users to roam their offices with their laptop PCs and access their applications through wireless transmission.

Twenty-seven percent of the customers surveyed said they have addressed their application access demands with 3Com`s virtual private network (VPN) solutions, a cost-effective, Internet-based alternative to traditional leased line corporate networks. Another 57 percent of surveyed customers indicated they will implement a VPN solution over the next year.

3Com`s Levin says that converged voice and data (telephone and PC) networks are also a major agenda item for most 3Com users surveyed at the event. "More than 23 percent of surveyed customers report they are already deploying convergence-ready LANs, with another 62 percent planning to support voice and data across their networks within 18 months," he adds. "While 17 percent reported that they have already installed voice and video over their wide area network (WAN), 46 percent of surveyed customers stated their plans to do so within 18 months."

He points out that 3Com`s e-Networks strategy is bolstered by recent enterprise technology announcements of application, access, and availability enhancements to 3Com`s CoreBuilder 9000 family of chassis switches and of the 3Com Transcend policy management system, a new standards-based, multi-vendor tool designed to simplify e-Network management.

According to the survey taken at Networks3, 60 percent of the attendees have plans to implement policy-based networking in their enterprise within the next 18 months.

Of those planning to deploy policy, a 34 percent are looking to manage their network traffic more efficiently, with an equal number planning to use traffic prioritisation to prepare for converged networking. Implementing greater network security was the top factor for 20 percent of those polled.