In 2008, Tew founded Popjam, an Internet aggregation and social networking business.

As a consequence, he said, the company's networking business, "its crown jewel, will become more apparent" and will help Itel attract investors.

"When we include the networking business into our own business, it changes everything."

But the networking business is highly competitive, so it's not clear anyone can come in from the outside and claim share.

Subject as it is to the whims of young people, the social networking business can be hard to predict.

"We think the result is that 3Com has a very bright future, with a complete focus on the networking business and much more financial resources."

Integration with things that people are already happy with is a good thing, especially when the social networking business is not strategically important to Microsoft anyway.

This networking business accounted for nearly a quarter of Compuserve's $793 million in fiscal year 1996 revenue.

We just felt it was a different business than the networking business and required its own focus.

Digital also sold its networking business to Cabletron.