New Modules Make 3Com's LANplex 6000 the Industry's Highest Performance,
Highest Density Data Center Switch

3COM INCORPORATES ISE TECHNOLOGY INTO LANPLEX 6000 SWITCH; DRAMATICALLY
INCREASES THE PERFORMANCE AND SEGMENT DENSITY OF THE INDUSTRY'S TOP DATA
CENTER SWITCH

June 5, 1995 -- SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Delivering on its promise to further
enhance the industry's leading data center switch, 3Com Corp. today
announced two new high performance switching modules for the company's
LANplex 6000 data center switch. With the new Ethernet/FDDI Switching
Module (EFSM) and Token Ring Switching Module (TRSM), the LANplex 6000
switch delivers unprecedented levels of functionality, cost-effective
segmentation and performance. For the first time, 3Com is incorporating
next-generation application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology
-- the company's Intelligent Switching Engine (ISE) chip -- into a module
for the LANplex 6000 switch, making it the industry's highest density,
highest performance, feature-rich data center switch on the market.

3Com's LANplex family of data center switches leads the data center LAN
switching market with 51 percent share in revenue according to Dataquest's
mid-year 1994 market revenue reports.

"The LANplex family is well established as the industry's top switch for
data center and collapsed backbone switching," said David Tolwinski, vice
president and general manager of 3Com's Switching Division. "By fully
leveraging the technology and functionality 3Com invested in our switching
ASICs, LANplex 6000 switch users will continue to benefit from the
increased performance and port density provided by new these modules while
significantly reducing the cost of data center switching and preserving
their initial switching investment."

Both the EFSM and TRSM allow users to scale bandwidth in shared and
dedicated Ethernet or Token Ring segments of various sizes and free up
bottlenecks between LANs and FDDI backbones.

With the new EFSM, the LANplex 6000 switch offers more switched Ethernet
ports (as many as 176 switched Ethernet ports and up to 12 switched FDDI
ports) than any other competing data center switch. The LANplex 6000
switch supports up to 11 EFSMs or TRSMs in the 12-slot chassis and up to 3
EFSMs or TRSMs in the 4-slot chassis.

The EFSM features:

** 16 switched Ethernet ports and two switched FDDI ports per module
   for high port density.
** Low latency single-hop switching to transfer data at more than
   562,000 packets-per-second.
** Elastic packet buffering and store-and-forward switching for
   complete packet error checking.
** Virtual LAN configurations through port groups, MAC address groups
   and IP routing.
** IEEE 802.1d compliant bridging and intra-network routing.
** 8K address table.
** User-definable packet filtering.
** Broadcast/multicast firewall for security.
** Two switching modes and Spanning Tree support in either mode.

The new Token Ring Switching Module (TRSM) for LANplex 6000 provides
cost-effective segmentation switching for Token Ring LANs. It consists of
eight shielded Token Ring ports to support a full ring of 260 stations,
with two ports for direct station attachment supporting dedicated 16 or 4
Mbps bandwidth to file servers and other critical resources.

The TRSM also features:

** One FDDI backplane attachment to any of the three LANplex chassis
   FDDI connections.
** Source Route (SRT) and Transparent bridging.
** 802.1d and IBM Spanning Tree support.
** Translation between Token Ring and FDDI for IP, IPX, SNA and
   NetBIOS allows for direct attachment of FDDI servers.

Both the EFSM and TRSM are easily managed through 3Com's Transcend
Enterprise Manager and Workgroup Manager. A future software release will
support full duplex Token Ring capabilities.

A Platform for Switching Scalability, Resiliency and Manageability

The LANplex 6000 switch's 19.5 Gbps-backplane supports multiple modules of
mixed technologies to provide customers with a scalable, seamless
migration path from shared 10 Mbps Ethernet and 16/4 Mbps Token Ring to
100 Mbps FDDI high speed links. Additional scalability to Fast Ethernet
and ATM are planned.

The LANplex 6000 switch offers redundant power supplies and hot swappable
modules to ensure high reliability. Furthermore, the LANplex Management
Module in each system is fault tolerant and switching is distributed
across each module to minimize single points of failure in the wiring
closet. The LANplex 6000's Roving Analysis Port (RAP) monitors traffic
through an externally attached network analyzer which can detect problems
instantaneously. The LANplex 6000 data center switch is a key member of
3Com's broad range of switching solutions which also include the
SuperStack LinkSwitch family of workgroup switches and the CELLplex family
of ATM data center switches.

Pricing and Availability

The EFSM is priced at $18,000 for 18 ports (16 Ethernets and 2 FDDIs per
module) and is available immediately. The TRSM is priced at $13,500 and is
expected to be available early this Fall. All prices are U.S. list. The
EFSM and TRSM for the LANplex 6000 switch will be available through 3Com's
worldwide distribution channels, including VARs, resellers, distributors
and direct sales. For information, contact 3Com at 1-408-764-5000.

Founded in 1979, 3Com Corporation (NASDAQ:COMS) pioneered the data
networking industry. Today, 3Com offers customers a broad range of ISO
9000 compliant global data networking solutions that include routers,
hubs, switches and adapters for Ethernet, Token Ring and high speed
networks. Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., 3Com has worldwide
research and development, manufacturing, marketing, sales and support
capabilities.

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