James Cope

A new product introduced last month at the RSA Conference 2001 in San Francisco by 3Com Corp. and Secure Computing Corp. aims to halt, or at least deter, network mischief carried out by insiders.

Although videoconferencing systems are widely used in large corporations, the kludginess factor has been difficult to overcome.

While network administrators grapple with the complexities of managing the remote-user end of virtual private network (VPN) connections, pilot users of a new hardware product from Cisco Systems Inc. claim they have found a way to ease the effort and even lower the cost.

In a keynote presentation Tuesday at the Cisco Global Partners Summit in Las Vegas, Cisco Systems Inc. president and CEO John Chambers pondered the fate of the economy and what Cisco is doing amid a spreading slump.

Earlier this spring, The Boeing Co.

Lucent Technologies Inc. finally caught a break today after being steadily pummeled by financial problems since last fall. Lucent announced a three-year, US$5 billion deal with Verizon Wireless Inc. to supply 3G (third generation) mobile telephony equipment.

"Betrayed." "Devastated." "Abandoned." Those were some of the words networking systems managers used to describe how they felt when 3Com Corp. pulled the plug on its large enterprise networking business.

Networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. confirmed Friday that it would reduce its workforce of 48,000 employees by up to 8,000 workers.