Strategic missteps and fierce market competition eroded the networking giant's dominance following the dot-com era, leading to its disappearance in November 2009. The Ethernet pioneer ceded market share directly to Cisco after exiting the enterprise equipment sector and overpaying for obsolete dial-up modem technology. These decisions destroyed profitability and left the business unable to fend off lower-cost competitors. Notably, the firm failed to turn a profit between 2000 and 2005 as cheaper rivals like Intel undercut its high-priced network cards.
Key points
Abandoning the enterprise networking sector alienated customers and allowed Cisco to doub…: Abandoning the enterprise networking sector alienated customers and allowed Cisco to double in size.
Sustained losses plagued the hardware company without a single profitable year between 20…: Sustained losses plagued the hardware company without a single profitable year between 2000 and 2005.
Later turnaround efforts, including an alliance with Chinese technology company Huawei, f…: Later turnaround efforts, including an alliance with Chinese technology company Huawei, failed to prevent its ultimate collapse.
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3Com was a high flying maker of network cards and other network equipment. And then they disappeared with a whimper on November 11, 2009. What happened to 3Com?
3Com at the dotcom boom
Around the time of the dotcom boom, 3Com was a 5.8 billion dollar company. They were founded in 1979 by Bob Metcalfe, the co-inventor of Ethernet. And for the next two decades, they were the go-to brand for network cards. While the 3C501 network card is notoriously bad, their other cards from the 1980s and 1990s are very well regarded, and always were.
They cost more, but had good driver support, the hardware worked reliably, and they were a known quantity. And 3Com made them in the United States, which was becoming unusual even in the 1990s.
I once worked in a shop that didn’t allow network equipment unless it was one of three brands. 3Com was one of them, along with Cisco and Intel. If you plugged a no name NE2000 clone card into the network and had problems, the IT department would replace the card…
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