Infrastructure networking made easy

HP closed a deal today to purchase 3Com for $2.7 billion, representing a significant change in the competitive landscape for networking solutions and further changing the game for IT infrastructure altogether. The addition of 3Com to the HP portfolio brings the HP Ethernet market share to 10%, second to the networking giant Cisco, which now holds 67%. Interesting to note is that 3Com holds 32% of the networking business in China and the purchase of 3Com is close to a perfectly complementary addition to the already-existing HP ProCurve product line. In other words, HP just purchased the last piece to the puzzle we call data center infrastructure.

Fun times are indeed ahead in the competitive market for networking share as well as data center infrastructure altogether, because HP is the only company who can actually claim they have the entire hardware stack which has been for so many years in need of integration. Sound anything like the value prop for the IBM Mainframe? Good, because it should sound similar. Fortunately, listening to customers’ desires led HP to build what we call a Converged Infrastructure without proprietary systems. Put another way, this infrastructure is based on industry-standard components and systems, so customers don’t have to worry about vendor lock-in. We’ve been doing a significant amount of listening to customers in the last few years, and the delivery of these kinds of capabilities is the answer to the questions we were asked.  I like to think the solutions we’re offering today are capable of directly solving our customers biggest problems.  I think the days of Converged Infrastructure honestly offering the best of both worlds, are just beginning.