3Com Wins Government Contracts

The Court of Justice in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the government of British Columbia, Canada have selected 3Com (COMS) products.

The networking major will supply its H3C high-end multi-service routing switches to the Court of Justice. The company’s switches have been selected for the network edge as well as within the network spanning the data center and court safe-rooms across 700 buildings spread over 300 locations. This is expected to improve the networking infrastructure, increasing the reliability and availability of information flow by 30%. The company edged out all its biggest competitors to secure the contract.

In a separate agreement, the government of British Columbia, Canada through its Health Authority (Interior Health) selected the TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to protect the government’s systems from the latest security attacks.

The company did not disclose what either of the deals was worth. However, COMS encountered stiff competition in Brazil and the Canadian government had budget constraints. So we think the company did some aggressive pricing.

Apart from winning major business deals, 3Com Corporation was recently in the news as Hewlett Packard Company (HPQ - Analyst Report) announced plans of taking over the company. The acquisition, valued at $2.7 billion, enables HP to challenge networking leader Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO - Analyst Report) on its own turf.

The benefit to 3Com will come through the utilization of HP’s global marketing and distribution network, as well as the improved scale of operations. With a strong business model in place and support from Hewlett-Packard, we believe that the company will grow at a fast pace and deliver impressive numbers.

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