Channel Tech Center

Years ago, 3Com was the company to beat as the networking market started to heat up, so much so that you could not mention the word “Ethernet” without thinking about 3Com. But, when giants fall, they fall hard and 3Com seemed to fall the hardest when the modern networking battles shifted into overdrive. Today, Cisco is the company to beat and many have tried to topple that networking giant and have failed miserably. Now, HP is looking to take on Cisco on all fronts, with an unlikely ally – 3Com. HP just plunked down $2.7 Billion to purchase 3Com to gain access to the growing network security market, additional expertise in VoiP and other technologies.

While 3Com may have had its nose bloodied and lost significant portions of the market, the company survived and carved out an interesting niche in the security market with TippingPoint’s intrusion prevention hardware as well as secure wireless products and traditional switching and routing hardware. HP recognized that and with the combined product matrix of 3Com and HP products can now offer everything to build the data center, from servers to switches to security.

While it may take some time for HP to penetrate Cisco’s 70% market share, it is inevitable that it will happen, simply because HP seems to play better with their channel partners than Cisco does. So, while the battle for the data center may be waged in big shiny buildings, it is more than likely that HP’s channel partners will be on the front line engineering HP’s conquests.