Wellfleet Communications Inc tied up three big deals last week when it announced that Tandem Computer’s San Jose-based Ungermann Bass, Cabletron Systems Inc and Fibermux Corp would distribute its products. Cabletron already has a similar arrangement with Cisco Systems Inc. Bedford, Massachusetts-based Wellfleet signed a further technology deal with Ungermann Bass aimed at getting full interoperability between the two companies’ router products. While the two firms claim that there is not much work left to do, one of the areas they will be concentrating on is a workable Point-to-Point Protocol implementation. Ungermann Bass will also develop simplified router management applications for the Wellfleet routers under its NetDirector management system. Ungermann Bass is characterising the agreement as being in line with its role as systems integrator and says that the Wellfleet Link node and concentrator node are being bought in to complement its hub-based Access One routers. In particular, the Wellfleet boxes support a wider range of media types than the Ungermann offering, and it denies that the deal will adversely affect the evolution of the Access One product line. If this is the case, and Ungermann continues development of Access One, the overlap is bound to grow.
