Ford takes delivery of Bay Accelar routing switches

Issued by Nortel Networks
Johannesburg, 11 Mar 1998

Ford Motor Company recently took delivery of the first two Bay Networks' Accelar 1200 routing switches and has plans to deploy more of these in the near future. The switches will be used within Ford's Global TCP/IP Intranet for Gigabit-speed data communications between the Ford facilities. The network is a key element of the computer aided engineering (CAE) environment at Ford and the Accelar routing switch products will enable it to keep pace with increasing performance demands. Being the technology leader in the CAE analysis for the development of automotive products, Ford uses its network intensively for business and needs the high-speed capabilities of the Accelar routing switch. By combining the functions of a traditional router and a traditional switch in one product, the Accelar routing switch products deliver data throughput speeds 10 times faster than traditional routers at a fraction of the cost.

Ford Motor Company operates one of the world's largest and busiest intranets, serving more than 80 000 employees around the world. The Ford 2000 program, launched in 1995, includes among its objectives the integration of Ford's worldwide operations into a single organisation with centralised vehicle design, development, and engineering. This requires extensive sharing of documents, designs, and other information on a global basis.

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