HP coughed up pocket change – $2.7 billion — to buy 3Com.  Expect lots layoffs at 3Com in the future.

Analysts are trying to spin this as HP takes on Cisco since 3Com has Ethernet switches and some routers. The deal also gives HP a [...]]]>

(LMADotD – “Let’s make a deal” of the day)

HP coughed up pocket change – $2.7 billion — to buy 3Com.  Expect lots layoffs at 3Com in the future.

Analysts are trying to spin this as HP takes on Cisco since 3Com has Ethernet switches and some routers. The deal also gives HP a bigger footprint in the Chinese market; 3Com has a 30 percent share there — not bad for a market expected to continue to grow.

HP will get some voice/VoIP technology to add to the portfolio, but seriously, if HP wanted to boost its telephony portfolio, they should have bought Polycom.

Back in 2007, 3Com tried to sell itself to Bain Capital and Huawei for $2.2 billion, but the detail got shot down in March 2008 by the U.S. government due to security  interests.

Brocade is currently feeling bummed out because HP was in talks to buy it, so they’ll take a stock hit.

Analysts say the purchase of 3Com’s deal gives HP the number two position in terms of network gear, but there’s a long road to travel before Cisco starts to break a sweat. Cisco has 70 percent of market share in terms of revenue, while a combined HP and 3Com have a 10 percent share of revenue.  As for units shipped, Cisco shipped 54 percent and HP/3Com have a 40 percent share….

Being an IP bigot at heart, the router is at the core of the network and you can’t really say that 3Com is a household name for routers, especially at the high-end.  If HP is really serious about networking gear, it will buy/merge with Juniper Networks.

Under an agreement rolled out earlier this [...]]]>

Among the remaining titans of ICT (Information and Communication Technology), HP has taken advantage of the failings and chaos of other companies (i.e. Nortel) to expand its positions in the telecom and UC arenas.  In the convergence between IT and telecommunications, HP may have the upper hand.

Under an agreement rolled out earlier this month, HP and Alcatel-Lucent have established a 10 year global alliance to help customers “leverage the convergence of telecommunication and IT,” meaning the companies will jointly market solutions and capabilities for service providers and enterprises.

Once a definitive agreement has been executed, the companies will jointly market solutions and capabilities that enable end-to-end transformation for service providers and enterprises.   HP and Alcatel-Lucent will have a global program for migrating communications networks into converged, next-generation infrastructure, plus services for managing new and existing infrastructures.

In addition, HP and Alcatel-Lucent will work together to selling communications solutions to larger enterprises and the public sector, with options of either buying through HP resellers or purchasing managed solutions.

It should be no big surprise that HP teamed with Alcatel-Lucent for delivering integrated IT/telecom solutions for service providers and enterprises.  Alcatel-Lucent had few options and with Sun being devoured by Oracle, HP was the last remaining independent with scalable server hardware  Alcatel-Lucent brings its IP telephony, mobility, security, and contact center knowledge to the table and HP can leverage its resellers.

Could Alcatel-Lucent have worked with IBM? Not really, as there was too much overlap between the telecom solutions that IBM already has in its portfolio (and conveniently running on IBM hardware). IBM is also sticking its fingers into mobile communications to the tune of $100 million, research that Alcatel-Lucent isn’t likely to be comfy with along with all those mobile apps that IBM is starting to roll out.

HP also has another card up its sleeve:  A four year unified communications deal with Microsoft.  Announced last month at Interop, the two companies expect to invest up to $180 million in a combination of product development, professional services, and joint sales and marketing.

Enterprises looking to embrace UC can now turn to HP and Microsoft, with HP providing additional software for network monitoring, as well as a high-end telepresence solution.  HP’s continued financial success and IT hardware may make the company a much more useful partner to Microsoft than Nortel ever ways; sure, you could run OCS on a Nortel server, but if you had to put HP and Nortel head-to-head in server hardware, HP wins hands down.

Back in 2006, Nortel and Microsoft rolled [...]]]>

Nortel’s asset fire sale “could possibly gut” its 3 year UC partnership with Microsoft, Network World says. Uh, yah think?   Given that HP and Microsoft swore to be friends and jointly invest up to $180 million at InterOp last month, I’d say both companies are in splitsville.

Back in 2006, Nortel and Microsoft rolled out a four year plan called the Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA), designed to jointly develop and sell UC and VoIP technology to enterprise customers.  Nortel brought the phone knowledge, some middleware, and its installed base while Microsoft brought Office Communications Server (OCS) and its brand name.

Sale of Nortel’s various assets and divisions could leave the ICA partnership without Nortel’s IP PBX platform, engineers working with Nortel on joint products, and – probably the biggest loss – Nortel Global Services, the consulting arm for ICA.

Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski predicted the partnership would generate $1 billion in revenue, but by 2008 Nortel was reporting a $3.4 million loss on the effort.

Avaya may pick up Nortel’s UC business for $500 million, one of Canada’s papers is reporting. If this takes place, Avaya would overlap with its UC own products AND Microsoft has a UC partnership with Avaya, leaving everyone guessing as to what redundancies would be chopped.

If Nortel Global Services goes out the door in the next wave of asset divestment, so does support for Microsoft’s UC try-it program for customers.

(Of course, this doeth beg the question why Microsoft isn’t putting down some cash to pick up some assets on the cheap, but it might be too busy with Bing to care…)

Besides, Microsoft and HP are already cozy with their own four year (hmm, where’d that come from?) “strategic global initiative” to deliver an end-to-end UC and collaboration solution, with the two companies earmarking up to $180 million in “product development, professional services, as well as joint sales and marketing, to help organizations lower costs and improve productivity.”

Further down the HP press release, there’s a lot of nice bullet points about how HP will have a dedicated team of service professionals (like they had with Nortel), as well as work with communication service providers for hosting solutions for SMBs (Like they did with Nortel).