Digital beats 3Com in Scotland

Digital has beaten 3Com to a contract that could lead to # 1m of business with Scottish Hydro-Electric.

The deal with the power utility company evens the score between the networking giants after 3Com narrowly beat Digital to a contract with Scottish Power earlier this year (Network News, 21 February).

The initial stage of the contract will be worth # 250,000, but according to Derek Malaney, Scottish sales manager for the Network Products Business Unit at Digital, it will ultimately be worth more than this.

"Scottish Hydro is centralising its Perth business into one location.

So far they have bought one Gigaswitch ATM and five DecSwitch 400's, but as more departments come on board in the New Year they will start taking delivery of VN switches."

Malaney claimed that Digital won the contract because it offers superior virtual Lan technology over ATM to 3Com. However, 3Com claimed that it lost the deal because Digital was the incumbent supplier.

At Scottish Hydro, Digital and 3Com were the only two suppliers on the shortlist after initial bids from four others: IBM, Cabletron, Bay Networks and Anite Networks - formerly Cray Communications - were rejected.

Nick Gosshawk, Digital UK's marketing manager, said: "With Scottish Power, we had got to a head to head situation with 3Com. The solutions offered were technically similiar, so it came down to money and we didn't want to get beaten on the price."