Fore beefs up LAN products with Berkeley buyout

ATM equipment vendor, Fore Systems, has acquired Berkeley Networks in a deal worth an estimated £250m.

Berkeley specialises in Gigabit Ethernet switching technology, the up-and-coming competitor to ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) in the backbone.

Fore maintained there would be no conflict of interests saying it plans to integrate Berkeley's Gigabit Ethernet switching technology only for its LAN products and won't be applying it in the WAN area.

Albert Benhamou, Fore Systems vice president for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, said: "Gigabit Ethernet is not suited to the WAN, but Fore's original business is in the LAN where Berkeley's technology will complement our product lines."

Eric Owen, WAN analyst at IDC research, said: "This is not a sign that rival ATM and Gigabit Ethernet technologies are converging in the WAN - Gigabit Ethernet is exclusively a LAN technology."

Fore claimed the acquisition of Berkeley's additional layer-3 and layer-4 switching products will help it make in-roads into the enterprise markets and branch out into the medium sized business and Internet service provider space.