3Com to lay off nearly 1,000 staff tomorrow (160)

Networking giant 3Com will fire nearly 1,000 people tomorrow, a source said today.

The job losses come in the wake of 3Com's takeover of US Robotics but no details are yet available on where the axe will fall. Individual employees will be told tomorrrow.

The move will cut five per cent out of 3Com's workforce and comes as Intel is threatening to topple the company from its number one position in the Fast Ethernet sector.

Paul Trowbridge, analyst relations manager at 3Com rival Bay Networks UK said the cuts were on the cards because the merged operation will be so large. "They have about 6,000 people each and it's a bigger beast they're wrestling with now."

He believes that Eric Benhamou, the chief executive of 3Com, will slim down duplicated administration functions as the main focus of the reorganisation. He said: "The reality of mergers is different from the appearance."

3Com, officially, continued to refuse to comment at press time.

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