Dell previews Fast Ethernet switches

On the heels of last month’s expansion into Layer 3 switching, Dell this week fleshed out its line of network equipment with three Fast Ethernet switches.

The PowerConnect 2216, 2224 and 2324 switches are aimed at small to midsized businesses, not the higher level that the PowerConnect 6000 series addresses. The announcement this week was more of a preview than a full announcement, as Dell left out details like how much the switches would cost and when they would ship.

What Dell did say is that the 2216 is a 16-port Fast Ethernet switch, the 2224 is a 24-port model, and the 2324 is the 24-port model plus two ports for Gigabit Ethernet uplinks or server connections.

While Dell seems to give its network offerings increasing importance, the announcement of the new switches was actually just piggybacked onto the announcement of two PowerEdge servers for small businesses. There was plenty of detail on the PowerEdge 700 and 750 servers, but all we learned about the new switches is that installation time is supposed to be short and that the switches can be rack- or wall-mounted.

But obviously, it’s natural that servers are still king at Dell. The company boasted in its latest earnings release, “Shipments of PowerEdge servers jumped 40% from the year-ago quarter, more than double the rate for the rest of the industry.”

Meanwhile, the earnings release didn’t mention sales of network equipment.