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palm
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 18)
To conclude an extremely interesting interview, here is a final, reflective segment with Eric. We will continue the story of Palm separately, later in September, once Palm’s shareholder vote for the Elevation Partners deal is completed. SM: You have watched what happened since then. What lost 3Com the position you were in at the end
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 16)
With Palm successfully launched, and the merger with USR stabilized, Eric was now at the end of his tenure as CEO of 3Com. Here is details his final decisions, and reflects back on some mistakes. SM: In our next series, I would love to examine Palm. Finishing up with the 3Com story, however, the USR
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 15)
Finally, poised for success, 3Com did spin off Palm as a separate company. SM: I think you find that a lot with folks who are entrepreneurial by nature – they like to be in charge of their creations. I know you ultimately did spin off Palm as a separate company, when did that happen? EB:
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 14)
3Com acquired US Robotics, and then USR started shrinking in the modem market, one of its primary franchises. In a royal nightmare that ensued, Eric lost the advantage that 3Com had built as part of its first turnaround. SM: Were there any positives which came out of this mess? EB: The only thing that came
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 13)
3Com challenged Cisco with a Boundary Router strategy that threatened Cisco’s core router franchise. SM: So what prevented you from finally catching Cisco and passing them? EB: In 1997, there was one major shock for 3Com. More and more enterprise networks had to extend into carrier networks. Enterprises could not build all of these large
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 3)
SM: Where did you go after Stanford? EB: The first company that offered me a job was Zilog. They were the second microprocessor company in Silicon Valley; Intel was the first one. The inventor of the microprocessor, Federico Faggin had left Intel and founded Zilog. I joined him about 12 to 18 months after he
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 2)
Eric discovered, at a very early age, one of the most common attributes of entrepreneurs: “I want to do things my way!” This, however, was not welcome in France, where he was growing up. SM: The old “I am going to do it my way” saying … EB: That’s right. I even started a small
Eric Benhamou & the Turnaround of 3Com (Part 1)
Eric Benhamou is a networking industry pioneer. Eric served as the CEO of 3Com from September 1990 until December 31, 2000, and since then, has been its Chairman. 3Com acquired Palm during his tenure as CEO, and later spun it out. For a while, Eric also served as the CEO of Palm, and later its
