1987 – The company buys Bridge Communications, maker of multi-protocol bridges.

1990 – Facing stiff competition from Microsoft and Novell, 3Com gets out of the network operating system business.

1990 – Eric Benhomou is named president and CEO of the company. He stepped down as CEO in 2001, but he remains chairman.

1994 – The company buys switch maker Synernetics, remote-access server maker Centrum Communications and ATM vendor NiceCom.

1995 – 3Com buys hub and switch vendor ChipCom for $775 million.