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51 Comments
- aguywhoeatspie, on 11/11/2009, -0/+44Wait, 3Com was still around?
- absolutelytrue, on 11/11/2009, -0/+17Seems like that would be good news for 3Com. Hope HP gets what they want out of it.
- reticulate, on 11/12/2009, -0/+113Com?
Holy *****. Haven't heard of them in ages. Hope this works out for HP better than Compaq did. - pgriffinmonmout, on 11/12/2009, -1/+9The last 3com product I bought was a 33.6kbps modem.
- nigelmansell, on 11/12/2009, -0/+8my last 3Com product was the Palm Pilot personal with 512kB memory
it still works! - seldon21, on 11/12/2009, -0/+6This is strategy! There currently isn't one company that can go toe to toe with Cisco because of their acquisitions and solutions they offer. It appears that HP is in this for the long haul and has been trying to build a real network hardware business instead of just playing in niche markets. This is great news, while most of the packets this post will be transferred across will be Cisco hardware, hp continues to make in roads into this segment. And if we can drive down the price of Cisco gear that is even a better thing all around.
- ampdj89, on 11/12/2009, -0/+4I think we should be seeing HP branded routers.
- fragMasterFlash, on 11/12/2009, -0/+4Why the ***** can't I get Windows 7 drivers for any of my Netgear NICs? Now that is a company I would buy for the satisfaction of shutting it down.
- kerwinste, on 11/11/2009, -0/+3And the Stock prices is doing really good right now.
- PRlME, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3actually 3-com has some pretty good routers, switches and other equipment(Commercial use).
- manstein01, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3I wish I knew what. HP already has better networking equipment than 3com. Is 3com's market share really worth that much? I guess we will find out.
- DaviDTC, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3That is what usually happens when a company gets bought out.
- snogye, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3HP is buying 3Com so that a giant Chinese Telecom/ Network Solutions Provider with lots of extra cash won't swoop in and dominate the U.S. -- Ever heard of Huawei?
- spish, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3Oh USRobotics, where are you now?
- brodie7838, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3
http://www.procurve.com/products/routers/ProCurve_ ... - brodie7838, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3I can say firsthand that ProCurve is very serious about taking on Cisco.
What's going to be really interesting is HP's move into IP/SIP phones. I doubt they will try to revive 3COM's weak phone products. There have been rumors (I work very very closely with both companies) that they are looking at buying a company in this market too, and with the Cisco/Tandberg deal in the works I'm sure HP will be feeling the pressure to get ProCurve in there sooner rather than later. - yacks, on 11/12/2009, -0/+3can I borrow a million?
- majortom1981, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2We use all procurve switches at work .They all where half the price and the same specs as the comparable cisco switches. I think HP does not even need 3com. HP just needs better marketing.
- ceekay, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2Interesting to see that not many people are aware that HP already has a networking business- ProCurve, which as brodie7838 mentioned, is very serious about taking on Cisco and has broken away from the pack of other competitors over the last couple years and established itself as a solid alternative. Will be further interesting to see how thing play out and the new, combined networking division moves forward.
- AlienMushroom, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2COMS went up 40%.
- brodie7838, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2@vuke69
My experience with performance is you either:
A: Bought anything less than a 5400 for the core of your network then didn't understand why it had packet loss.
B: Tried to turn on Flow Control and Jumbo Frames together for your iSCSI switch, then wonder why file transfers are slow.
C: Enabled Spanning Tree in half of your network, PVST in your Cisco devices, leave everything at it's default with no predetermined root bridge and then call to scream your network updownupdownupdown because you didn't know PVST and STP aren't compatible and Cisco won't implement IEEE standards based protocols without charging for an IOS upgrade.
D: Say performance is slow, then adamantly deny there is any possible way Joe user looped a hub at his desk, despite the log entries showing excessive broadcasts everywhere *that you didnt know how to check because it's in the CLI and the entire config was done via the web interface "because the CLI is too hard"* - secrity, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2Does 3Com still have many employees?
- kirualeorio, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2How many will get layoff notices?
- seltaeb4, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2At one time I worked in Silicon Valley PR.
The joke about HP was that if they were to invent sushi, their slogan for it would be "Cold Raw Dead Fish for Sale." - klui, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2The "merger" worked out great for Compaq.
- Rugrash, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2Well the economy is one reason and having a newborn is another. I need some stability in the short-term till things improve. There are only so many pay and benefit cuts one can take. I'm biding my time until I can get out...
- york2600, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2Compaq worked out great for HP, just not in the short term. They got serious business class laptops and servers. They needed that as they were lacking in both.
- jacksons98, on 11/12/2009, -0/+2Compaq worked out great for HP. HP is the #1 PC manufacturer in the world
- vuke69, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1(Then I just need to get rid of this damned Mitel phone system for Call Manager)
- vuke69, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1This is probably HP trying to secure their future place in the marketplace since Cisco has released their own blade server platform.
I've always been a fan of HP equipment, but the new Cisco gear is seriously impressive. They could become a tier 1 player in the datacenter (blade/dense server) market in a heartbeat, and I think HP sees that as a serious threat. But honestly, I don't think HP has nearly as much to fear as IBM in that space. We are currently an IBM shop (on a Cisco network), but last year they lost out our desktop business to Dell, they are about to lose our SAN to EMC, and the servers will hopefully be Cisco in the near future. We are VMware heavy, so the move is really easy.
If Cisco ends up buying EMC (who owns VMware), that would make us wall to wall Cisco in the DC. - york2600, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1I had a 10mbit network to replace a few years ago. Cisco cost: a bit over $200,000. HP cost: $75,000 and that came with free management software, lifetime next day warranty,and free software upgrades. I'm a cisco guy, but if you need to run a networks for desktop users then HP is the way to go. If you need high performance WAN networking and high availability datacenter networking then go with Cisco.
- spish, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1Good! Maybe this will help the ProCurve line. They've never had a true data center grade switching system. They'll probably sell off the NBX product though. I can't imagine HP using it as a way to get into the increasingly cramped telephony space.
- york2600, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1The datacenter is where HP is lacking and getting the 3COM expertise might help them move out of of the value networking space into the high performance networking space.
- vuke69, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1Admittedly, I haven't touched any ProCurve switches, nor had any strong desire to do so in about 6-7 years.
Back then it was a 4000M, and a bunch of 2524 & 2512 switches, and a couple of 2124? (can't remember precisely) hubs.
Hubs are hubs, and obviously sucked. For a while I wasn't even sure if the collision light was working, because I never saw it turn off. But that's a given, not HP's fault, and they went straight to the trash soon after I started.
The 4000M I never had any real performance complaints with, and it was reasonably stable. Hell, It's probably still in production to this day. But it's main purpose in life was a glorified fiber converter, and it was never pushed hard. My main complaint was lack of line card options, and availability thereof.
The 25xx series switched however, were only stable in bursts. They would be up for a year, then go face down in the soup 3-4 times in a month span. More ports than you would normally expect, had to be hard coded for speed/duplex because auto-negotiation was hit or miss, and even when it was working auto/auto, every once an a while speed/duplex or even once mdi/mdi-x, would just start flapping for no apparent reason. (beyond the normal "never let a 3Com nic auto-anything" from back in the day) Then you have the new bad port every month or two. Vtys that hang if your telnet session gets disconnected, and you have to reboot the switch to clear them because you only get 4 vtys. A firmware update every decade or two. SNMP that occasionally starts giving bogus stats (didn't appear to be counter size related). A web interface that is second only to the stand-alone jet direct cards for ***** over use of java that has very strict version requirements (not that it's useful anyway)... Enough ranting...
Now for the good about HP:
Cheap
Lifetime Support (if I remember correct)
Capable /enough/
It's not Dell brand (Have you ever used that garbage? It's seriously horrible)
If I were building a set-it-and-forget-it network, with no on site tech, and no uber-complex requirements, where cost was the primary concern; I would use HP all the way.
For most other cases, I would use Cisco (10 year Cisco geek, sorry). They may not have the best switches, the best routers, the best firewalls, or the best VPN devices; but they have all of them available, and they are all top 3+ in their class, and they all play nice together. Plus they are pretty much the industry standard. If you have some crazy problem, there are 100 joe-ciscos out there that can help. Used equipment is cheap and plentiful. And information on the internet is abundant. - seltaeb4, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1I think this is where they were originally headed with the Tandem acquisition, hoping to become an end-to-end solutions provider.
But then Carly developed a bizarre fixation with acquiring a cheapo PC vendor, Compaq. Remember them? It was inexplicable, as HP already made PCs. But she made it an ultimatium—"either we buy Compaq or I quit"—and the Board was foolish enough to go along with it. Such was the death of "the HP way." HP has spent most of the last decade trying to recover.
In retrospect, nixing the Compaq acquisition and dumping Carly would have been killing two birds with one stone.
And now she wants to be a Senator... - ceekay, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1That joke is still around. ;)
- rrouse, on 11/13/2009, -0/+13Com had the patents for some the early Ethernet technology but they might have all expired by now.
- Scottie83, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1Sure did, I just sold my stock.
- ohreilly, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1Yes. They make ***** DSLAMs that have line cards that crash when you use Broadcom-based modems (which is a lot of them).
They have also cornered the UK market in HSDPA dongles. - vuke69, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1P.S.
HP has pretty much always been my favorite server vendor, and I honestly REALLY REALLY REALLY hope they do have the ability put Cisco's feet to the fire both for servers and networking.
When vendors duke it out, we almost always win. - AlienMushroom, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1Profit taking.
- groovygraham, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1If you don't like working at HP, why don't you leave and work for a better company?
- brodie7838, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1Well they've come a long way in 6-7 years. The 4000M, 2524 & 2512, 2124 are all switches, not hubs, and yes the 4000M is still out there, chugging away. The 2500's are good solid switches, in fact probably one of the most resilient switches ever. The tests NASA put the 2524 through before installing them in the Space Station would make you cringe. :D
The 2124, well not much to say there, unmanaged, cheap basic switch for the most part, not designed to do anything special except switch.
Granted, there are some things that would be nice to have that Cisco likes to invent, but there are a lot of frustrations there too since Cisco doesn't like to follow IEEE standards, so it will indeed be interesting to see what kind of innovation comes from both companies as they wage war on eachother. - KooperG, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1mostly researchers in their huawei joint venture W3C, about 4000 (if we can believe 3com's own propaganda)
- groovygraham, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1Compaq bought Tandem in 1997, not HP. Then Compaq bought DEC the following year.
HP bought Compaq a few years later. HP is now the worlds leading PC manufacturer, I guess Carly made a big mistake. - Rugrash, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1At HP, we're supposed to be "doing more with less" and Mark Turd decides to blow a couple of billion on 3Com. Instead of wasting that money on a company that is a mere shadow of its former self, he should be trying to save more people's jobs at HP. The next round of layoffs are soon and morale can't go much lower. I'm sure Mark will continue to enrich himself at the employee's expense, but then again this is just par for the course for many of senior execs. It's more business as usual.
- SeculrProgrsive, on 11/12/2009, -1/+1Add 3com to the list of brands I will never buy again...
- vuke69, on 11/12/2009, -3/+1"I can say firsthand that ProCurve is very serious about taking on Cisco."
On pricing, sure... on any metric even remotely related to the actual performance or manageability of a network... not so much. -
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