3Com has announced the immediate availability in the UK, US and Canada of a new super-switch that combines your normal switch with a firewall, anti-virus, content-filtering and intrusion detection - in short, a network's security all in one box.

The 3Com Security Switch 6200 isn't cheap though, coming in at $25,000 a piece. Unsurprisingly, 3Com is aiming it at medium-to-large businesses.

“The 6200 delivers a cost-effective, no-compromise enterprise security solution that combines proven security applications into an integrated security services switch platform,” is how 3Com's security director Michael Homeier summed it up, before plugging the switch as part of 3Com's "pervasive network" vision/sales pitch, depending on your perspective.

The switch itself is one of the first to come from an alliance between 3Com and security company Crossbeam that was announced at the start of November last year. At the time, 3Com VP Anik Bose explained 3Com's new focus on security, claiming that businesses "don't want a lot of different boxes lying around" and would pay for an all-in-one package.

By Kieren McCarthy at Techworld.

[ Read more ]