Bay router thinks small

Continuing its push into all corners of the networking market, Bay Networks (BAY) will introduce a router for small businesses next week that aspires to take the complexity out of the network experience.

Priced at less than $600, the Bay Nautica 200 is targeted at small offices and home offices (SOHO) with four users or fewer that seek to connect to the Internet or their corporate network over a high-performance line.

Dave Norton, Bay's product manager for access routers, said the new gear is the lowest priced offering on the market for that feature set.

The small-office battleground is one of the most significant remaining markets for networking equipment, according to most analyst estimates. Though the profit margins are low compared to high-end offerings, the barriers of entry into small organizations are minimal. Shiva, 3Com, Galdalf Technologies, and Cisco Systems are among the other active players in this space.

Bay officials promise compatibility with network access hardware from these other companies.

The box, which will ship next month, includes support for a LAN (local area network) 10-mbps connection, an ISDN port, and two telephone jacks for faxes and phones. It also includes two software applications that ease the configuration and monitoring of the box.

The Nautica 200 also includes Bay's NauticaRS routing software code, which supports the Point-to-Point Tunneling (PPTP) tunneling protocol for users and companies who want to log into a corporate network or intranet through a virtual private network.