3Com Connects to Channel Partners Over Web With ChannelWave Partner Relationship Management Solution.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 22, 1999--

Large Enterprise Division Reports Streamlined Sales Cycle and

Increased Reseller Follow-Up Rates

ChannelWave, a pioneer in the Partner Relationship Management (PRM) field, today announced that 3Com Corporation completed deployment of the ChannelWave PRM application. 3Com's Large Enterprise Sales Division selected ChannelWave to streamline the sales cycle by improving communication between the organization's over 200 territory managers and more than 2000 channel partners.

"We needed a web-based lead management system that could be easily used by both our channel partners and territory managers," noted Lee Phillips, Director of Marketing for Large Enterprises at 3Com. "ChannelWave offered us a PRM system that could be deployed quickly and integrated with our existing Goldmine system. We've been looking for a solution like ChannelWave for years."

"ChannelWave is specifically designed to improve communication between corporations and their resellers - allowing us to quickly customize and deliver our solution on an extremely aggressive time schedule," said Chris Heidelberger, president and chief executive officer of ChannelWave.

ChannelWave's lead management system supplies 3Com's sales organization and its resellers with an intuitive graphic user interface, secure login to customized information, and faster lead turnaround. With this 100% web-based system, users can easily access lead opportunity information and enter updates in a central location using only a standard web-browser. Since the system keeps track of assigned leads and their progress, 3Com has the tools to enforce closed-loop selling and has substantially increased their sales lead follow-up rates. The territory managers have more control over assigning leads, resellers receive leads faster, and the sales team can spend more time selling rather than organizing paperwork. With information about the start-to-finish of every lead, 3Com's marketing department has the necessary data to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing activities and to gauge which programs generate the highest quality leads.

"ChannelWave has a PRM vision that will revolutionize the field," said Doug Smith, Operations Manager of Large Enterprises at 3Com. "They delivered beyond our expectations in development, support, and training. We look forward to implementing additional ChannelWave applications in the future."

About 3Com Corp.

With more than 200 million customers worldwide, 3Com Corporation connects more people to information in more ways than any other networking company. 3Com delivers innovative information access products and network system solutions to large, medium and small enterprises; carriers and network service providers; PC OEMs; and consumers. 3Com - More connected(tm). For further information, visit 3Com's World Wide Web site at http://www.3com.com/ or the press site at http://www.3com.com/pressbox/.

About ChannelWave

ChannelWave (formerly VirtuFlex), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, develops, markets and supports Partner Relationship Management applications. The company was founded in 1994 with the mission to help corporations overcome their channel communication and management problems. ChannelWave focuses on the creation of channel sales extranets to include such functions as channel communication, lead distribution, reseller profiling, pricing, product configuration, sales forecasting, order processing and product feedback. ChannelWave customers include 3Com and Nortel Networks. For more information, visit the ChannelWave Web site at http://www.channelwave.com or call [phone].