Morton Buildings Improves Information Access and Productivity Using 3Com's SuperStack Solutions.

Business/Technology Editors

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2000

Powerful 3Com(R) Network Speeds Advanced Engineering Applications

to 300 Architects, Designers and Drafters at Award-Winning, One-Stop

Construction Company

3Com Corporation (Nasdaq: COMS) announced today that Morton Buildings, Inc., a nationally recognized "one-stop shop" construction company in Morton, Ill., has upgraded its headquarters network with additional 3Com(R) SuperStack(R) II 3300 Gigabit Ethernet switches to create a faster-paced workplace for e-business. Now using 20 SuperStack II 3300 switches, the local area network (LAN) is powering a multitude of high-bandwidth graphics applications to 300 desktops within the campus's three main buildings. Ten times faster than its previous legacy network, the 3Com LAN provides Morton Buildings' design and advertising departments with instant access to their business-critical applications, improving both productivity and customer service.

"3Com has proven to have first-rate medium-enterprise solutions, which is why we chose 3Com for our campus using stackable LAN switches," said Phuong Chiu-Tcheng, Morton Buildings network and project manager. "With Morton Buildings' commitment to quality and innovation in business and technology, we are constantly looking for additional, practical technologies. Because of the potential for cost-savings and more flexibility, we are interested in converged voice/data networking and wireless technology and plan to look at the new offerings of 3Com LAN telephony and 3Com wireless LANs."

Founded in 1903, Morton designs, engineers and constructs buildings ranging from churches and homes to municipal buildings and equestrian complexes. With 2,300 employees, the firm operates six manufacturing plants and 115 construction centers in 40 states nationwide. For generations, Morton has won a plethora of awards from leading construction organizations.

Powered by 3Com's SuperStack solution, the Morton network reliably delivers a complete menu of graphics applications to almost every company department. Chief among these is AudoDesk's AutoCAD. A design and drafting software program, AutoCAD allows Morton's architects, engineers and drafters to quickly and easily create and exchange complex construction documents and building designs. Having eliminated queues of engineers waiting to print out AutoCAD files, the 3Com solution lets users open large design files in six minutes compared to four hours with the firm's previous legacy LAN.

The 3Com network additionally allows the advertising and sales departments to easily access AutoCAD to view blueprints and convert them into marketing materials. Using network-driven graphics applications, such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe PhotoShop and Quark XPress, Morton's advertising department transforms AutoCAD files into high-quality marketing brochures, flyers and photos for the company's Web site -- ensuring that every customer has an excellent first impression of the company's work.

With Illustrator, for instance, a marketing staff member can easily convert a highly technical blueprint of an office building into an eye-catching promotional design by using the 3Com network. The Illustrator file is then printed into a brochure or delivered via the network to Morton's internal Webmaster, who posts it on the company's Web page.

"Morton Buildings' success depends upon producing building designs as quickly and efficiently as possible, and we needed a powerful network that would speed up our engineering processes," said Chiu-Tcheng.

"Using our 3Com infrastructure," added Jerry Cramer, Morton Buildings implementation manager, "we shaved approximately 15 hours from every design-build project, so that projects that used to take 48-52 hours to complete now take 32-40 hours. 3Com is also contributing to our competitive advantage by helping us improve the quality and timeliness of our print and Web-based marketing materials."

Designed for Speed and Reliability

Morton Buildings' upgrade of its headquarters LAN emanated from the company's need to reliably deliver its engineering applications critical to its productivity and customer services. Previously, the company used shared Ethernet systems from a variety of vendors that buckled under the weight of graphic-heavy design applications. Last year, after considering a variety of Ethernet switching solutions from leading vendors, Morton tested 3Com's SuperStack II 3300 switches for six months and then chose to upgrade to a Gigabit Ethernet LAN based on 3Com's SuperStack II 3300 switches.

"3Com provided us with an affordable, reliable and scalable solution to manage every department's application needs now and for the long term," said Chiu-Tcheng. "We believed that 3Com offered the best solution for our growing company that will now compete more effectively."

Morton launched its network a year ago and continues to expand it to accommodate the company's continuous growth. Within the headquarters' administration building, the data center employs 15 fully redundant SuperStack II 3300 switches. These switches connect via fiber and copper at Gigabit Ethernet speeds to the remaining five dual speed SuperStack II 3300 switches throughout buildings whose departments require more bandwidth than others such as the engineering and marketing departments.

The SuperStack II 3300 switches distribute the network at Fast Ethernet speeds directly to users' desktops via 3Com 10/100 megabits per second (Mbps) SuperStack II Baseline hubs. The SuperStack II 3300 switches also distribute 1000 Mbps links to 30 Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Novel Netware, MAC Apple Talk and IBM OS/2 servers. Morton utilizes solely 3Com Fast EtherLink(R) NICs in its MAC, Compaq, IMB and DEC Alpha desktops, as well as 3Com's Gigabit Ethernet modules in the servers.

"3Com's architecture empowers our employees to swiftly produce our designs with cutting edge applications at their fingertips," said Chiu-Tcheng. "With the infrastructure we have now, we are confident that we will continue to save time and money on each project, and more efficiently meet our customers' needs well into the future."

About 3Com Corporation

With more than 300 million customer connections worldwide, 3Com Corporation connects more people and organizations to information and each other in more innovative, simple and reliable ways than any other networking company. 3Com delivers web-enabled solutions to consumers, small- to medium-sized business locations and network service providers. For more information, visit 3Com's web site at www.3com.com/pressbox.

3Com, SuperStack and EtherLink are registered trademarks and the 3Com logo is a trademark of 3Com Corporation. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.