3Com Corp, Santa Clara has definitive agreement to acquire long-standing North Billerica, Massachusetts-based Synernetics Inc for $104m. Synernetics specialises in Ethernet and FDDI switching technologies with its LANplex 5000 and 6000 lines, the latter providing an upgrade path to switched FDDI and Asynchronous Transfer Mode. Its 1993 sales are estimated at some $27m with about 45% of that sales to 3Com. 3Com will write off most of the purchase price and related transaction costs in the current quarter. Synernetics will keep its base in Massachusetts and become 3Com’s switching division.
