AMERICAN networking company 3Com, a market leader workgroup networking and data centre switching, has announced a new range of switches aimed at capturing the workgroup switching market. 3Com claims the new products, the SuperStack LinkSwitch 1000, LinkSwitch 2200 and LinkSwitch 3000 Ethernet and Fast Ethernet workgroup switches, represent the fastest, most cost-effective and simplest workgroup switches. With prices starting at US$199 per port, the products allow switching at a price comparable to shared media networks. Doug Sherman, product marketing manager for 3Com Asia said: 'We are coming out with switching that is very close in price to repeating. 'Yet at the same time with a switched environment, users can get many times the performance of a repeating environment.' Mr Sherman said the products were part of 3Com's strategy to come out with low cost, easy to use switches for the workgroup, with the aim of capturing a major share of that market. The new products compliment existing 3Com stackable workgroup switches; the LinkSwitch 500, LinkSwitch 1200 and LinkSwitch 2700, and switch to all popular high speed network technologies. The LinkSwitch 1000 has 24 switched ethernet ports, a switched Fast Ethernet port and an optional slide-in module with a Fast Ethernet port. The LinkSwitch 2200 has 16 switched ethernet ports and a high-speed FDDI port. The LinkSwitch 3000 has five fibre-based Fast Ethernet ports, one twisted pair Fast Ethernet port and an optional slide in module with a Fast Ethernet port, either fibre or twisted pair. The 3000 is seen primarily for use in the data centre. The products can be integrated into 3Com's High Performance Scalable Networking (HPSN) architecture. HPSN is designed as a blueprint to help businesses build distributed network computing environments, and is managed by 3Com's Transcend Network management workgroup and enterprise applications. All of the products can be managed by Transcend, and can be used in the establishment of virtual LANs. With the launch of the Fast Ethernet products, the company is hoping to promote the use of high-speed switch based technology. Mr Sherman said 3Com's message was that Fast Ethernet was largely the same as Ethernet, and that going from ethernet to Fast Ethernet, was easier than going from FDDI to ethernet. The products, which are due to start shipping in the next two to three months, come after the recent launch of rival Cisco System's LAN switching products.