11 Countries Say Yes to Xircom Product

Xircom, a Thousand Oaks manufacturer of computer communications products, has received approval from 11 countries to market its GlobalAccess credit card modems.

The cards, which connect computers worldwide and can be adapted to networking systems that vary from country to country, now has been approved by 15 countries, all since August.

“Every country has requirements where we have to work with local phone companies to get approval,” said Renee Bader, Xircom’s vice president of worldwide marketing. “It has to do with interface into phone systems and their version of the FCC. When you see ‘global access,’ that means that product has been approved and tested broadly.”

The list of countries providing product approval includes Denmark, Finland, Japan, Korea, the U.K., Germany and Singapore. Bader said Xircom will work on getting approval from another six to 12 countries.

Xircom is trying to address two categories of customers with its global modem cards, priced from $259 to $379, Bader said.

“For the international traveler, who goes from country to country, we want to make sure there is a very user-friendly modem to do the data,” she said. “The second customer is the corporate customer, the information services manager supporting a large set of users worldwide. It gives him one modem he can standardize.”

Offering products with worldwide accessibility, she said, is critical to her 235-employee firm.

“Fifty percent of our revenues are derived from sales outside of North America,” she said.