3Com, Symbol to Jointly Develop Wireless LAN Telephony Solutions

3Com Corporationf its strategy to deliver one network infrastructure for voice, video, and data, <%=company%> (Santa Clara, CA) will partner with Symbol Technologies (Holtsville, NY) to integrate 3Com's NBX 100 Communications System with Symbol's NetVision family of wireless mobile communications devices. 3Com will provide multi-line business communications capabilities to Symbol's 802.11 hand-held devices to bring full multimedia capabilities to business phones.

The joint development effort will extend Symbol's wireless technology to a variety of voice, video and data communications devices from 3Com, including the NBX 100 Communications System business phones to bring advanced mobility to business environments.

The companies will give enterprise customers wireless Ethernet phones that are fully integrated with features and functions that users expect at the desktop. From any location within a corporate site, Symbol's wireless VoIP phones will have the same features, functionality and properties as that of the business phone that sits on the desk.

3Com and Symbol support IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.3 in its product offerings, allowing organizations to extend existing infrastructures to support next-generation voice, video and data applications. The phones and applications—wired or wireless—will operate over one network.

The new partnership fits in with 3Com's strategy to exit the slow-growing portions of its networking business and focus on emerging technologies, such as wireless networking, Internet telephony, and high-speed Internet access through cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) modems. 3Com will leave the high-end networking business, selling some high-end equipment to Motorola and dropping its family of CoreBuilder high-end switching products, turning to former competitor Extreme Networks (Cupertino, CA) for that type of technology.

Jointly developed 3Com and Symbol solutions are expected to become available to customers in the second half of 2000. The companies will work together on joint marketing and sales programs, as well as training materials and consultant programs to support customers.

Edited by John Spofford