3Com's plan to acquire TippingPoint Technologies for approximately $430 million in stock gives the company more security clout as it grows its menu of gear targeted at large business networks.

TippingPoint also gives 3Com, which announced the deal last week, an answer to competitors' recently unveiled security products and partnerships designed to marry network infrastructure to intrusion prevention and security. The TippingPoint buyout gives 3Com its first in-house source of security gear. 3Com previously partnered with security switch vendor Crossbeam, selling the company's firewall, intrusion-detection system and content-filtering switches under 3Com's brand. 3Com also sells enterprise WAN routers with firewall and VPN capabilities under its Huawei Technologies-3Com joint venture.

TippingPoint's UnityOne products are hardware appliances used to detect malicious traffic at the network edge or inside a corporate LAN. The boxes are placed between routers and firewalls on the edge, or between LAN switches inside a campus network. Instead of inspecting traffic streams mirrored off of network devices, all live production traffic passes through the boxes, which can process traffic at up to 2G bit/sec, the company's Web site says.

Hardware in the appliances inspects packets at Layers 2 through 7 and can identify and filter suspicious packets, recognizing attack signatures targeted at weaknesses in operating system software on servers and network equipment. The devices also can detect unusual traffic patterns Trojan- or worm-infected machines on a network cause and shut off those connections, the company says. TippingPoint has a management appliance and software for administering polices and security data across thousands of UnityOne appliances inside an organization.

3Com CEO Bruce Claflin says 3Com first will sell the UnityOne products under the 3Com brand, and then integrate the technology into its line of routers and switches, possibly as blades in 3Com's 7700 or 8800 series switches. Claflin says 3Com also will modify TippingPoint products in the future for an intrusion-prevention system offering aimed at small and midsize businesses, where 3Com has a strong presence.

Claflin also sees the TippingPoint products as an entrée for 3Com's routers and switches into larger corporate networks.

"For most CIOs, security is top of mind," Claflin says. TippingPoint gives 3Com "a security capability that will interest any CIO in any company in the world."

3Com will pay $47 per share for outstanding stock of TippingPoint, which is based in Austin, Texas, and has 125 employees. TippingPoint will become a division of 3Com, pending completion of the deal, which is expected in the first quarter of 2005. TippingPoint CEO Kip McClanahan will act as president, reporting to Claflin.

TippingPoint competes with such vendors as Cisco, Network Associates, Internet Security Systems, TopLayer Networks and Vsecure, among others.

"I like the deal," says Jon Oltsik, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "It gives 3Com a unique offering with the combination of Huawei and Crossbeam."