There is life after Digital - in a formerly haunted house in the Connemara Gaeltacht. A group of electronic engineers who lost their jobs when the multinational closed in Galway in 1993 have set up their own successful research and development cell in Spiddal.
"Living locally, working globally" is the basic philosophy of the company, which has a wonderful "almost-waterfront" location overlooking Galway Bay.
The tranquil setting of Manor House at Baile an tSagairt industrial estate is deceptive: 3Com Teo, as it is known, works to a new master across the Atlantic and has simultaneous links stretching from Boston to Santa Clara in California, to Israel, back to Britain and to "Dublin, Ireland".
The master is 3Com Corporation, one of the world's leading suppliers of data, voice and video communications technology.
Sitting at his desk in an open-necked shirt with a mug of coffee, managing director Tadhg Creedon can listen to his chief executive giving his global address live on screen as he works on a new silicon design problem.
"It is practising what we preach," Mr Creedon says. "What better way to sell our networking equipment than to put it into use ourselves?" A Gaeilgeoir from Ballingeary in Co Cork, Mr Creedon is allergic to buzz phrases such as "remote access" and "pervasive networking", and even has difficulty with "teleworking" as a description.
"Bringing the work to people, rather than the people to work," is how he prefers to describe the 3Com approach, whereby it nurtures remote groups as a means of reducing travel time to and from the office. In his earlier years he did the opposite, at a price.
Originally based in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, with Digital, he moved to Galway in 1991 when that plant closed. Two years later Galway's hardware division was gone, with the loss of 780 jobs. It was a major shock to the employees who had, for 20 years, enjoyed some of the best and most envied posts in the State.
"We had the choice of moving to Digital in Dublin, or not!" Mr Creedon recalls. 3Com came hunting heads, and secured seven engineers working on silicon design for high-speed, low-cost computer networking equipment.
"With Digital's co-operation, we moved with 3Com to Dublin initially, but the game plan was to get back west as soon as possible."
During the initial phase Mr Creedon would spend three days a week in Dublin and two working at home in Galway.
"Telecommuting has its limits. To manage people, you really need to be there physically. Also, you need to be together when it involves design."
His colleague John D'Arcy - a Wicklow man - agrees. As principal software engineer, Mr D'Arcy is next-in-line to a boss in Massachusetts, and communicates with him on e-mail. He still travels once a month, however.
"When you are in the kick-off phase for the next project, and a lot of brainstorming is involved, meeting face to face is often better. Issues can be dealt with by video-conferencing, yes. But you often can't see facial expressions or judge body language, you don't quite know why someone has left the room, and you can only gain an insight into that if you already know what their basic lifestyle is about."
3Com Teo in Spiddal began last October with five people, all of whom had spent some months or more at the headquarters in Blanchardstown, Co Dublin, where 40 of about 1,600 employees concentrate on R&D. 3Com Teo hopes to have 25 employees in Manor House within four years. The Galway team works specifically on high-speed (multigigabit) communications and remote access products.
Working with Mr Creedon and Mr D'Arcy are Vincent Gavin, a physicist who was also with Digital, and several NUI Galway electronic engineering graduates, including Mike Lardner from Tuam, Suzanne Hughes from Westport, Co Mayo, and Denise de Paor from Carraroe.
Fellow Corkman Brendan Walsh is a UCC graduate like Mr Creedon.
3Com Corporation encourages its global networking staff to integrate locally. Several schools in Galway county have been linked to the network.