With market dominance in the server space and aggressive positioning in the storage arena, HP networking carved a niche as a complimentary networking footprint in primarily HP midsized environments. What HP may have lacked in the true enterprise space, it made up for in the BladeSystem arena with an endless stream of best of breed networking and connectivity innovations. However whilst well received, the HP ProCurve brand, used to market the end to end networking range, failed to propel HP into the minds of business critical network designers as the vendor to deliver enterprise, high availability solutions.

That is set to change with the recent acquisition of 3Com networking. Not only does this unlock a market validated enterprise class, business critical networking range (the 3Com H3C platforms) but also the market leading Tipping Point security product set. With a core networking functionality borne out of the enterprise and carrier grade design skills gained as one of the founder Ethernet product vendors, the 3Com range is market credible. Prior to the 3Com acquisition, HP had consolidated a position as the number two networking vendor in the market. As previously mentioned much of that market traction stemmed from strong mid market sales many stimulated by the lifetime warranty, implementation simplicity and integration with the wider HP product range.

The re-launched HP Networking brand now contains the best of all worlds with the H3C solution set aligned with high end enterprise customers married with legacy ProCurve platforms for the mid market and secured by the Tipping Point footprint. The HP ProCurve name is now gone and replaced by a clearer HP Networking brand.

This new approach to networking is a positive step for HP and could not only help to consolidate HPs number two position in the market but also open up new market segments previously aligned with competing vendors

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Learn More:

HP to Acquire 3Com for $2.7 Billion
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/091111xa.html

HP Finalises Acquisition of 3Com Corporation, Accelerates Converged Infrastructure Strategy
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100412xa.html