Christie's Auction House Launches Gigabit Ethernet Network in New North Amercian Headquarters Using 3Com's Ultra-fast Corebuilder 9000 Switch.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 24, 1999--

End-to-End 3Com Gigabit Ethernet System Will Help Legendary Auction

House Put More Than 50,000 Items on the Block Each Year

3Com Corporation (NASDAQ:COMS) today announced that Christie's, the world's leading fine art auctioneer, is standardizing a Gigabit Ethernet backbone network at its new North American and South American headquarters in Manhattan's famous Rockefeller Center on 3Com's next-generation CoreBuilder(R) 9000 enterprise switch. The 500-user network also relies on a combination of CoreBuilder 3500 Layer 3 switches and SuperStack(R) II 3900 Ethernet workgroup switches providing 10/100 megabits per second (Mbps) desktop connections. Christie's new multi-story, 315,000-square-foot space, which replaces its 22-year home on Park Avenue, combines auction rooms, exhibition galleries, on-site storage and offices, creating the world's premier auction facility.

Christie's has been identified with extraordinary art, unparalleled service and international glamour since James Christie opened his London auction house in 1766. While the company is best known for its high-priced fine arts auctions -- last November, it sold a Van Gogh self-portrait for $71.5 million -- it offers items in more than 80 categories, from jewelry and wine to cars and sunken cargo, at a variety of price levels. Christie's has a presence in major cities around the world, with 119 representative offices and 16 selling centers in 41 countries.

Virtually all computer services at Christie's new Rockefeller Center headquarters will operate on its 3Com network. Chief among these applications is the auction house's digital photography operation, used by Christie's Digital Studios to create and distribute high-resolution digital photographs appearing in more than 200 catalogs produced each year promoting the company's New York auctions. The Digital Studio uses digital cameras to capture multiple photographs of each item up for auction, then employs the high-speed 3Com(R) network to dispatch the high-bandwidth images to teams of graphic artists in various locations around the building for electronic color correction and other digital processing. Once the photographers have ensured each item is shown as accurately as possible, they swiftly move the 10-to-100 megabyte image files across the high-speed local area network (LAN) to a Unix file server. The completed files are then transferred on to disk shuttles for shipping to London, where Christie's catalog production facility prints the full-color glossy books for each auction. The finished catalogs contain up to hundreds of high-quality images and are the principal promotional tool for Christie's auctions, allowing buyers to review works of art in advance of auctions.

The 3Com network also supports the complex suite of programs, which manage the workflow of running auctions. Christie's proprietary auction management application, for instance, tracks every stage of a sale, beginning when a seller consigns an item to Christie's for auction. Information about the property -- what it is, what it might sell for and who's selling it -- goes across the 3Com network into a database. After the auction, that data is augmented with the details of the transaction such as the sale price and the terms of payment. Over time, the property management database has become a comprehensive record of sales in the world of fine art and how much items are worth on the open market.

The new 3Com Gigabit Ethernet network additionally runs all back office support programs, including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange email and Christie's accounting applications. It also supports a corporate intranet with access to internal policies and procedures as well as a variety of information about Christie's business. Whether employees want to look up the proper way to enter an item in the auction management database, forward a word processing document to a colleague or broaden their knowledge of early 20th century American painters, they can do so quickly and easily.

"Christie's has always stood for the finest quality and that standard now extends to networking, which is critical to providing our clients with the highest level of customer service," said Steve Russell, Christie's Chief Information Officer. "Using 3Com's Gigabit Ethernet solution, we now have a powerful and reliable network that rapidly provides all the services we need to promote and administer more than 200 auctions in New York alone annually."

Auction House "Sold!" On Fast, Stable High-Performance Systems

Christie's new network emanated from the need to deploy a high-speed architecture at its new North and South American headquarters. Having previously used a 3Com shared Ethernet LAN at its Park Avenue facility for several years and at other worldwide locations, the company needed a more bandwidth-rich infrastructure to support its image-intensive catalog production and other networked services. Confident in 3Com systems' speed and reliability, as well as the vendor's support, the auction house selected 3Com over other networking leaders that the company evaluated.

"3Com's proven performance and their Gigabit Ethernet solution in particular made them the logical choice for Christie's," noted Russell. "3Com engineers designed the network based on our building's floor plan, then performed all the installation from unpacking, racking, and stacking to configuration and testing. Their scalable Gigabit architecture will no doubt serve us for many years to come."

Launched this April, the core of the new network is based on two redundant CoreBuilder 9000 switches interconnected with dual 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet trunked connections. For additional redundancy, each of these centralized switches has two Gigabit Ethernet trunked connections to three more CoreBuilder 9000 switches in wiring closets, which each provide 10/100 Mbps links to roughly 290 users. The core CoreBuilders 9000 switches further distribute 100 Mbps links to seven Compaq Proliant servers running Microsoft Windows NT and Silicon Graphics servers running Unix. They also have two redundant Gigabit Ethernet links to two CoreBuilder 3500 Layer 3 switches supporting multiple virtual LANs (VLANs). The VLANs provide segmentation for each of the building's floors. Christie's, through the use of a central Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, assigns IP addresses based on the location of the user. The CoreBuilder 3500 switch additionally provides the segmentation for Christie's digital photo studios and prepress catalog operations located on different floors so they can exchange image files with optimal speed and reliability.

The two primary CoreBuilder 9000 systems also provide Gigabit Ethernet connections to four stacks of two SuperStack II 3900 Gigabit Ethernet switches, which deliver 10/100 connections to approximately 240 more users on less populated floors such as the company's warehouse. Christie's Compaq desktops are all equipped with 3Com Fast EtherLink(R) network interface cards.

In addition to 3Com hardware, Christie's is using 3Com's Transcend(R) Enterprise Manager network management software to control, configure and manage the network from a single management console. 3Com is also delivering 24-hour X 7-day support, free software upgrades and advance hardware replacement to Christie's through its comprehensive Guardian service program.

"Using our 3Com network, we will continue to evolve and improve our key services and processes," said Russell. "We also have the built-in reliability to keep our network running without interruption and an infrastructure that has the ability to grow as we continue to take advantage of the latest advances in technology."

About 3Com Corporation

With approximately 300 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 enterprises, small businesses, carriers and network service providers, PC OEMs and consumers. 3Com. More connected.(TM) For further information, visit 3Com's World Wide Web site at www.3com.com or the press site at www.3com.com/pressbox.

3Com, SuperStack, Fast EtherLink, CoreBuilder and Transcend are registered trademarks and Guardian and More connected. are trademarks of 3Com Corporation. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.