3Com switch gets 'limited' launch
XRN 7700 enterprise switch is first fruit of joint venture with Huawei
3Com has launched the first fruit of its joint venture with Chinese telecoms equipment vendor Huawei in the form of the XRN 7700 enterprise switch.
However, only a limited number of resellers and distributors will be authorised to carry the 7700, as 3Com attempts to make its way back into high-end enterprise systems.
"We will be implementing a certification strategy in terms of which channel partners will be ready for it. There is a higher level of complexity [in the 7700]," said Stanimira Koleva, 3Com's channel director for international regions.
Tim Jalland, 3Com's senior director of enterprise networking product management, said the firm will also ship a modular, gigabit-capable switch, the XRN 4070, in July, and will upgrade its software to version four in September. This will support OSPF and distance extensions for its XRN switch family.
The 7700 boasts gigabit capabilities, and the company has claimed that it has a clear roadmap to take the product to 10-gigabit functionality in the near future.
But the vendor's competitors seemed unimpressed by the launch.
"We want to develop products offering increased performance and decreased total cost. This is based on having a line with a single architecture," said Martin van Schooten, marketing manager for Europe at Extreme Networks.
"Although 3Com is a big company with a big channel, a lot of that company is SME-focused. The customer will decide in the end. We feel confident, and not threatened by 3Com at all."
Koleva said that the ongoing lawsuit brought by Cisco against Huawei would not affect Europe.
Bruce Claflin, chief executive of 3Com, filed an affadavit with the Eastern District Court of Texas on 24 March, supporting Huawei's opposition to a preliminary injunction that Cisco wanted to be placed on Huawei's operations in the US.
"The whole lawsuit is in the US, so Europe is unaffected. Besides, all products from the joint venture will be compliant and will not infringe others' intellectual property," Koleva added.