3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe explained the name 3Com was a contraction of "Computer Communication Compatibility", with its focus on Ethernet technology that he had co-invented, which enabled the networking of computers.
3Com 3C509BC (Etherlink III) Ethernet NIC from mid-1990s with 10BASE2, 15-pin AUI and 10BASE-T connectors
3Com Ethernet / modem PCMCIA card, inserted into a ThinkPad 760
3Com 3c905-TX 10/100 PCI network interface controller
Robert "Bob" Melancton Metcalfe is an American engineer and entrepreneur who contributed to the development of the internet in the 1970s. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com, and formulated Metcalfe's law, which describes the effect of a telecommunications network. Metcalfe has also made several predictions which failed to come to pass, including forecasting the demise of the internet during the 1990s.
Metcalfe in 2004