The worldwide recession has a lot of people looking at alternatives to Cisco and I don’t expect that to change much…the big problem is that everyone is saying “They’re not Cisco,” but nobody is doing it hard enough to pull away from the pack, regardless of what part of Cisco’s lunch people are chasing.

It reads like a “I love Cisco” post. Don’t get me wrong but Cisco have done some great things in the Networking Space, and I agree they do have a 72% share in terms of revenue (3COM 3% / HP 5%). However, if you do this same share in ALL Managed ports shipped it looks slightly different, with Cisco having 55%, 3COM 8% and HP 10% .. What this actually shows to customers is that if you want Cisco you pay a premium, but you get more valus for your money with HP or 3COM than you get with Cisco.

While I can’t comment on 3COM, HP have had 30% growth (less the blip everyone had in 2008) for the last three to four years. Proving that customers are sick of Cisco prices, and they are very interested in Open Standards within the network. Open Industry Standards, is something that HP and 3COM have been pushing since the invention of ethernet.

Have a read of what HP management had to say about every networking vendor. They looked at them all, and saw that 3COM have kit thats fills the gaps in our own portfolio. Does Juniper? Brocade? Or is there significant product overlap? HP is not going to kill off the networking equipment that has seen HP become the second largest Networking Vendor (according to Analysts) or managed to get them seen as on of only two leaders in Gartners Magic Quadrant for Campus LAN – see http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/3com/166799.html

Finally as disclosure, I work for HP in the UK. I am still looking forward to seeing what you have to say about HD Comms at an event in the UK soon. Any ideas when you are coming over?