IBM plays catch-up with its latest range of Lan switches

Thin server is claimed to be half rivals' price.

IBM's competitors have been dismissive of the IT giant's latest raft of Lan products, saying the vendor is only playing catch-up.

Big Blue's 8274 Nways Lan RouteSwitch, is a nine-slot Gigabit Ethernet chassis switch, with modules that allow the user to interconnect between all types of Ethernet, Token Ring and ATM. The ATM switching module allows Ethernet Lans to connect to ATM backbones at 155Mbps, creating a Virtual Lan. The Token Ring modules provide switching at wire speeds for each of the potential 256 Token Ring ports. The switch, which also offers Layer 3 routing and support for firewalls, will be available in April.

Its 8371 Multilayer Ethernet switch is the vendor's first campus switch with IP services including MPOA (Multi-Protocol over ATM) for IP- and IPX-based Lan emulation client functions. It also supports IP multicasting, which can ease the bandwidth demands of applications using push technology or video streaming. It is a Layer 3 switch with 16 fixed 10/100 autosensing ports with expansion slots.

Colin Gibbs, technology director at rival Nortel Networks, said: "They are where we were a year ago. Rather than just trying to catch up they should focus more on policy management because that is the issue this year."

IBM also announced a thin server, targeted at small and medium-sized businesses, which it claims is 50 per cent cheaper than competitive offerings.

Its functions include VPN, voice, fax and data capabilities.