3com Corp

3Com Corp. said it will fire 380 employees--150 of them temporary workers--at two Chicago-area plants and replace a top Illinois executive as the company struggles with product lines acquired in its 1997 purchase of U.S. Robotics Corp. Santa Clara-based 3Com, the No. 2 maker of networking equipment, said the employees worked at former U.S. Robotics plants that made desktop computer modems and remote-access servers used by businesses to route phone calls to the Internet.

3Com Corp., the world's second-largest maker of computer network equipment, agreed to invest up to $100 million in China and said it plans to start selling its PalmPilot hand-held computer in Hong Kong and Japan. The Santa Clara-based company's growing business in China is expected to help offset a slowdown in Japan, 3Com Chairman Eric Benhamou said.

3Com Corp., maker of computer networking equipment, said its fiscal third-quarter loss will be much wider than forecast on weaker-than-expected sales. The surprise announcement sent 3Com's shares down 14% to $7.22 in active after-hours trading. The shares had closed up 13 cents at $9.13 on Nasdaq. Shares of other network equipment makers also fell. Santa Clara, Calif.

3Com Corp. said it expects its fiscal second-quarter results and revenue to be lower than forecast because of delayed sales to telecommunications companies. The announcement sent its shares tumbling as much as 27% in after-hours trading. Santa Clara, Calif.-based 3Com said it expects a loss of between 19 and 23 cents a share for the quarter ended Friday, wider than the 7 to 9 cents a share previously forecast. The company expects sales in the range of $765 million to $780 million.

3Com Corp. said its profit rose 38% in its fiscal first quarter to $119.3 million, or 33 cents a share, well above the 24-cents-a-share average estimate of analysts polled by First Call Corp. Revenue fell 1.3% to $1.39 billion. Sales of 3Com's Palm organizer climbed 50% to $174.2 million and now make up 13% of revenue. Sales of systems that link computers in corporations rose 9%.

3Com Corp. said it will reorganize after its planned $6.6-billion takeover of modem maker U.S. Robotics Corp., which is expected to be completed this summer. The Santa Clara company also announced that its president, Bob Finocchio, will leave on May 31 for personal reasons. The maker of computer networking equipment plans to create three business units to correspond to its major markets. The enterprise systems unit will produce products for large corporations.

3Com Corp. said it has agreed to sell its telecommunications equipment business to UTStarcom Inc. for $100 million in cash and would focus on making equipment for corporate and institutional networks. Santa Clara, Calif.-based 3Com said the deal would free it to go after more complex and higher-margin deals. UTStarcom President and Chief Executive Hong Lu said the CommWorks acquisition would place the company in new markets outside China.