The Sky is Falling... The Sky is Falling
or how many times do I have to hear about the 3Com Core Builder saga?

By Glenn Conley
President/CEO
Metropark Communications, Inc.

Yes Virginia, large manufactures do discontinue products when they've run their course. Did Ford discontinue the Model T, how about the Thunderbird and Mustang… did they come back? What did Chevy do with the Nova, didn't Volkswagen go bug-less for a good number of years?

In order to make room for newer ideas and products all manufacturers make these types of decisions. But after 3 years since 3Com decided to retire the Core Builder 9000, why do I still hear that 3Com doesn't stand behind their products. The day that 3Com discontinued that product, the news sent shockwaves throughout the technology sector. Rumors of 3Com getting out of business… 3Com selling off all of its product lines so it could be sold off to another company… 3Com exiting the Enterprise marketplace. I hear the same nonsense today… 3 years later!!

The truth of the matter, the Core Builder 9000 was a very stable core switch but it made up only a fraction of 3Com's revenue, and yet their manpower focusing on this enterprise product was considered out of proportion to its revenues. I feel this focus was due mainly to their need to compete with other manufacturers in the enterprise marketplace.

When 3Com announced that they would no longer be manufacturing new Core Builder 9000's, they knew the customers would be fully supported by 3Com for 5 years into the future. In fact, here in the year 2002, with the 3Com loyalty program, any customer with an old Core Builder switch can upgrade to the new 4007 series chassis for free. Allowing their past investment in the core builder and its blades to now live in the Switch 4007, a brand new and fully supported switch!!

Two big companies that have had trouble in the tech sector and Wall Street recently are Cisco and Nortel. Both companies were very loud in predicting the demise of 3Com. "What goes around… comes around" my grandmother used to say!

3Com's stock is up, 1.37 billion dollars in the bank, gross margins up over 38%, and a fantastic product line that continues to blow away the competition. No wonder those other guys want the enduser to believe the sky is falling.

Replies: I've had 27 positive responses to my article (so far). In hopes of being fair to all counter points of view, I'll post the negative ones here, along with my replies:

yoel blumberger :yoel@topcom.co.il
When Ford discontinued T model they supplied their customers with substitution. 3Com, till today, 3 years after their move, still don't have a descent switch with functionality and density that will provide the needs of the customers. They will talk with you, building funny networks from many little "mini core" switches in order to get a system that has only half the ports needed. There is a way to discontinue , the way 3Com used made many customers to abandon 3Com and they will not buy 3Com products even if they are cheap and good.

Greetings Yoel,

Thank you for your reply to my article on 3Com's End Of Life of the CB9000. I believe that since 3Com was not really focusing on the very LARGE enterprise market at that time, their CB9000 had simply run its course. If you need more than 54 Gig in a single box, then you would be advised to purchase from a manufacturer that focuses on that market space. My point was to bring out the politics of the whole CB9000 issue. Most of the complainers about 3Com's exit of that market, never bought the Core Builder to begin with. As far as our few customers who did make the purchase, 3Com has available parts for a period of 5 years, and now with their new switch offerings, the whole CB9000 issue is mute.

For your review, I'm attaching a very recent article about Cisco being sued over exiting one of their products. To my knowledge, 3Com was never sued over their decision to discontinue the CB9000. No harm, no foul...

Thanks again for your reply and have a nice day,

Glenn Conley

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