Do you remember USRobotics? Back in the mid-90’s, the company was huge. When you walked into a computer retail store back then, you would find huge displays of USRobotics products covering the floor. Not only was the company huge as far as providing high quality analog modems to customers, but they also owned the Palm, and Megahertz brands.

I had the great pleasure of working for USRobotics during the mid-90’s when the company was huge and fun to work for. I remember CEO Casey Cowell riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle into the warehouse to start his work day. Dry-cleaning and masseuse services were provided to employees free of charge. Employees often got together for a softball or basketball game after work. The company was fun to work for and the people I worked with were great.

Things changed though when 3Com purchased USRobotics in 1997. Originally, the purchase was spun to the media as a merger. 3Com was easily a larger company, and it became apparent in the coming months that USRobotics would just be a name used under the 3Com family.

3Com had big plans and expected exponential growth. They bought a huge campus in Rolling Meadows, IL. The campus had only 1 building, but plans were unveiled to build several more buildings around the campus. It seemed the company had plans to hire for many new jobs, but at the same time, entire departments were being outsourced including mine.

A new strategy seemed to be taking shape for the company. Instead of producing quality products and providing quality support for them, have somebody else make the product cheaply, and just slap the 3Com or USRobotics name on it. One of the first products they tested this strategy with was the USRobotics Big Picture Video Kit. It was basically a Hauppauge video card with a modified USRobotics Winmodem. The product was marketed as a video phone on your computer. The product barely worked half the time and was a mess to support. It also sold poorly.

On the Palm end of things, 3Com saturated the market with Palm devices. The Palm III, Palm IIIc, Palm IIIx, the Palm V, and Palm VII arrived on the market all within a years time. Consumers started to get frustrated because as soon as they bought their Palm, a newer, better one would come out a few months later. The Palm OS didn’t really evolve much other than gaining a color screen with the release of the Palm IIIc during this time. Windows CE devices were slowly evolving and gaining market share.

Around 1999, 3Com suddenly became a struggling company. Plans were dropped for expanding the campus and massive layoffs ensued. In 2000, Palm and USRobotics were spun off into separate companies so that 3Com could focus on their networking business, another goal they failed miserably at.

USRobotics, once a huge name in the computer industry with offices all over Illinois now only occupies a small office in Schaumburg, IL where they still make network based products. It’s very difficult to find USRobotics products in retail stores these days. I often wonder if things would be different if not for 3Com’s purchase of the company.

Tags: usrobotics, 3com, modems