3Com Outperforms Five Competitors in U.S. Navy's IT-21 Certification Tests.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 1998--

Leading Networking Provider's ATM and Fast Ethernet Switches Deliver Fastest Response Times to Qualify for Billion-Dollar Overhaul

of Navy Information Systems

3Com Corporation (Nasdaq:COMS) today announced that its asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Fast Ethernet switches led five competitors in vendor certification tests for the U.S. Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT-21) initiative.

Launched in 1997, IT-21 is the Navy's billion-dollar program to upgrade networked communications and data delivery in all fleets and shore-based facilities using advanced, commercially available technologies.

The tests, which were conducted by the Navy at a testing laboratory in Norfolk, Va., pitted 3Com(R) ATM-to-Fast Ethernet networks against those from Cisco Systems, Fore Systems, Cabletron, Xylan and Bay Networks. Each vendor's configuration was required to complete an office automation application test suite developed for the Navy by EDS.

The test suite included Microsoft Office as well as the Navy's Joint Maritime Command Information System (JMCIS), a client/server application generally used onboard Navy ships. Vendors were evaluated on their ability to deliver 155 megabit per second (Mbps) ATM connections and 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet links to 10 workstations respectively.

Results compiled from averaging three executions of the test suite clearly showed 3Com to provide the fastest connectivity to both ATM and Fast Ethernet workstations. 3Com connections to ATM workstations averaged 213 seconds compared to its closest competitor, Cisco, which completed them in 278 seconds.

3Com links to Fast Ethernet workstations averaged 215.9 seconds in contrast to Cisco, which finished second at 264 seconds. 3Com also was the only vendor whose ATM workstations outperformed its Fast Ethernet workstations, a fact that will allow the Navy to deploy 3Com ATM systems more cost-effectively to support IT-21.

"3Com's leadership in IT-21 testing underscores our commitment and ability to provide the Navy and other military branches with the highest performing networking systems to anchor their mission-critical applications," said Matt Galligan, 3Com's director of IT-21 services.

"The testing demonstrates how well 3Com can fulfill the Navy's bandwidth and application requirements and that we are an excellent partner to work with to satisfy the service's full range of IT-21 objectives."

3Com, which provides scalable, high-speed enterprise networks, to date has received IT-21 certification for eight products, the most of any vendor. The Santa Clara-based vendor is also actively working with several Naval installations to help them build IT-21-compliant networks. Most recently, 3Com deployed a $5 million multimedia, ATM network at the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Navy's world-renowned academic institution in Monterey, Calif.

"We're taking a global view of IT-21 and plan to do all we can to support the initiative at Naval installations across the U.S. and the world," said Galligan.

About 3Com

3Com Corporation enables individuals and organizations worldwide to communicate and share information and resources at anytime from anywhere. As one of the world's preeminent suppliers of data, voice and video communications technology, 3Com has delivered networking solutions to more than 100 million customers worldwide. The company provides large enterprises, small and medium enterprises, carriers and network service providers, and consumers with comprehensive, innovative information access products and system solutions for building intelligent, reliable and high performance local and wide area networks. 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 and its Federal site at http://3Comfederal.com.

Note to Editors: 3Com is registered trademark of 3Com Corporation. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.