3Com plans to spin off TippingPoint via IPO

3Com is planning an IPO for its TippingPoint security unit some time in the near–or not-so-near–future. The networking company announced the plan Thursday via a short press release that is light on details, as these things typically are. All we know for now is 3Com paid about $430 million for TippingPoint back in December 2004, a time when intrusion prevention was the Next Big Thing. A few months earlier, McAfee (then Network Associates) had acquired IntruVert and Entercept for a combined $240 million, and other networking companies, including Cisco and Juniper also were getting into the security game in a big way. But that experiment looks to be over now.

When and if it happens, this will be the second IPO for TippingPoint. The company was already publicly held when 3Com bought it in 2004.

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