3Com Corp, criticized for having its fingers in too many technology pies, strayed down yet another product pathway yesterday with the launch of its first line of digital PC cameras. Called the HomeConnect brand, 3Com’s first portable camera, for desktop and laptop users, plugs directly into a USB port. Based on technology from Vista Imaging Inc, the camera is designed for PCs running Windows 95/98 and 2000 plugging directly into the USB port for a mobile video connection.
Consumers are expanding their use of the internet as a communications tool, said Anna Pappas, senior product manager for video at 3Com, and they want peripherals that enhance that communication, she said. The company has been criticized heavily this year for its lack of a cohesive strategy, and despite attempting to hold together so many diverse product groups, analysts agree the only way forward for 3Com is to spin off or sell off some of these groups. The consensus is that the company will sell its high-end networking business and concentrate on its core competencies that are the modem and NIC card business and the Palm computing platform.
However, 3Com believes that its new digital camera will build up its presence in the consumer networking market. The company claims that its camera has the unique ability to cope with different lighting conditions, although most standard videoconferencing cameras these days have a light adjustment facility. Usefully though, it comes with a nine foot connection cable that makes it easy to pick up and move around a room. It comes loaded with software to capture and send video over the internet, and being a USB device, it can be plugged into a running computer and recognized in seconds, said the company.
