"Our experience in achieving market leadership over the last few years in China has made it clear there is a significant need to take the cost and complexity out of building enterprise networks," said Bob Mao, chief executive officer, 3Com. "This demand for the 'no-compromise network' is clearly global and runs from small enterprises to large multinationals. Customers are ready for an alternative to the outdated and proprietary offerings that are too costly to purchase and difficult to manage. We have validated our approach by introducing H3C outside of China in select markets in Asia Pacific, Latin America and EMEA and we are encouraged by the receptiveness large enterprises have shown in adopting the new H3C enterprise portfolio."

"There is more scrutiny of enterprise networking vendors by IT leaders than ever before as they make getting more value from their networking investment a top priority," said Mark Fabbi, vice president -- distinguished analyst, Gartner. "Enterprises are searching for vendor options to provide lower TCO and easier management and deployment while fulfilling their need for continued high performance and reliability."

3Com is expanding the H3C portfolio of edge-to-data-center solutions with two new switching platforms, the H3C S12500 for end-of-rack in data centers, and the first-of-its-kind "flex-chassis" switching platform, the H3C S5800, for wiring closets, smaller network cores and top-of-rack in data centers. All of the products announced today, as well as 3Com's complete H3C portfolio of products, are manageable by the new H3C Intelligent Management Center (IMC)--a single-pane management platform that allows for the effective integration of traditionally separate management tools, providing complete management of resources, services and users.