Harris Aligns With Wavtrace, FORE Systems

Redwood Shores, CA-based Harris Corp. has formed a strategic alliance with Bellevue, WA-based Wavtrace. Under the agreement the two microwave radio developers will work together on developing products for the emerging broadband wireless market.

The agreement will enable the two companies to collaborate on distribution, manufacturing, and technology to bring wireless broadband solutions to service providers. In particular, Harris will sell and support the Wavtrace products, and also will acquire a significant equity position in the company.

To address the needs of broadband designers, Harris will combine Wavtrace's products its recently released StarBurst family of point-to-multipoint radios. This combined product line will offer solutions for systems operating between 2.5 and 40 GHz.

Wireless ATM agreement
On the heels of its agreement with Wavtrace, Harris has also stuck an accord with Pittsburgh-based FORE Systems, a developer of products for public-network infrastructure applications. Under the agreement, the two companies plan to jointly sell and deliver asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) solutions over point-to-point and point-to-multipoint microwave radio networks.

The Harris-FORE Systems partnership stems from a two-year wireless-ATM joint sales and marketing agreement, where the two companies collaborated on sales, trade shows, seminars and conferences, and marketing communications initiatives. As part of the new agreement, Harris will integrate FORE's products into its radio equipment for sale to affiliates and customers directly and indirectly through certified dealers, distributors, or third parties.

FORE's ForeRunner ASX-200BX ATM switches will be used in combination with Harris' MegaStar 155 radio equipment to create a 155 Mb/s microwave network backbone for transferring voice, data, and video. Future applications will include wireless transfer of broadband multimedia information between enterprises using point-to-point and point-to-multipoint links.