Cabletron's Spectrum enhanced by startup

An interesting occurrence coinciding with Cabletron's Spectrum 5.0 rollout is the public announcement of the birth of a new company - Opticom, Inc. The startup is led by many former Cabletron executives whose new mission is to fulfill one of the key promises of Spectrum: the practical management of a multivendor network comprising both Cabletron and non-Cabletron components.

Opticom's product family, the Executive Information System (EIS), targets the delivery of services similar to those now offered in Spectrum 5.0 - services that integrate network service-level management with business process management using Spectrum's Data Warehouse. The unique feature of Opticom's line is its support of configuration, fault and performance management services for the products of some of Cabletron's major competitors, including Cisco and Bay Networks.

The Spectrum 5.0 announcement coupled with Opticom's initial product deliveries offers users higher level service management that is significant in functionality and in the scope of multivendor support.