Though HP's Procurve line of switches already compete with Cisco's hardware, the 3Com deal will offer HP far more firepower in the war to own the corporate data center. 3Com, a dot-com boom and bust veteran, recently launched a new series of data center switches that compete directly with Cisco's Nexus switching line and cost about 40% less on average, according to the Yankee Group.

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The bottom line was that switching critical data from the iPhone to the RAZR was painless, once I found the right tool to use for the music transfer, even for a decade-plus devoted Apple user.

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The traffic was combined by the IAD, and fed down the DSL line to a Choice One DSL multiplexer in the local Bell Atlantic switching office.

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Since March, Forbes readers have been switching on their webcams, watching Super Bowl ads, and seeing their smiles instantly plotted on line graphs.

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