With an eye on the small and medium business (SMB) market, 3Com Canada Corp. released new gigabit Ethernet switches on Monday, designed to act as an entry point transport for high-speed connectivity.
The Mississauga, Ont.-based company has introduced four new gigabit Ethernet switches that come in both managed and unmanaged flavours. The 3Com unmanaged OfficeConnect Switch 8 with Gigabit Uplink is a nine-port switch that comes with eight 10/100 ports as well as a 10/100/1000 port for uplinks or server connections and starts at $150. The unmanaged OfficeConnect Gigabit Switch 5-port, starting at $45 per gigabit port, is a 10/100/1000 switch that comes in a small form factor designed for small offices. The 3Com 2816 16-port and 2824 24-port unmanaged 10/100/1000 switches offer fixed configuration for rack mounted or standalone implementation, the company said. Pricing is yet to be determined.
On the managed side, the company has introduced the 3824 10/100/1000 24-port switch, a standalone switch designed for branch offices and SMBs, which starts at $150 per gigabit port.
According to Nick Tidd, managing director of 3Com Canada, the new switches address the SMB need for increased bandwidth in their networks. He said that as the SMBs start to increase the amount of traffic on their networks, they are looking for expandability and looking to take advantage of low cost of ownership.
“We have invested a lot of our resources in driving the cost of ownership out of our switches,” Tidd explained. “The SMBs relish that. They know our switches are very easy to use and are easy to install. The biggest piece is that in terms of enterprise and SMB, we are seeing faster switching requirements, we are seeing growth in the amount of data they are using and transmitting and the Web is playing a big part of that. This is just a continuation of the building block.”
The 3Com OfficeConnect Switch 8 will be available later this month. The OfficeConnect Gigabit 5 is due out in July and the 2816 and 2824, along with the 3824 managed switch are expected for release in August.
For details, visit the company at www.3com.ca.
