3Com “disaster” claims rebuffed by UK channel leader and HP
Comtek suggests that HP will focus on extending its own portfolio into 3Com’s strongest markets – such as China – and developing new products based on 3Com technology, while discontinuing overlapping product lines and in most cases withdrawing support for these legacy products.
According to Comtek, this could impact thousands of organisations worldwide which currently rely upon 3Com’s enterprise networking equipment every day, but which cannot afford to risk any equipment malfunction.
“When two major tech companies become one, it generally spells good news from an R&D perspective, but disaster for many of the companies' existing customers,” says Askar Sheibani, CEO and founder of Comtek. “IT companies like HP don't want to support multiple products that serve the same purpose, which means in the event of an acquisition, some product lines invariably get the axe, leaving those customers facing great pressure to replace their IT equipment, irrespective of its condition or whether there is a genuine need to upgrade.”
Sheibani highlights examples like 3Com’s acquisition of networking rival Chipcom in 1995 which left many Chipcom customers unhappy with the rapid “end of life” of many serviceable products. He also believes that some end users are “naive and don’t understand the issues they are facing” especially as IT departments within the debt ridden public sector budgets are cut and simply cant replace “legacy” equipment.Excited
However in a non-committal statement, Steven Dietch, VP of marketing, HP ProCurve said, “Until the acquisition closes, HP and 3Com will continue to operate independently [and] during this period, HP will continue to keep the best interest of customers and partners in mind. We are committed to ensuring the success of our partners’ businesses and will provide the highest levels of customer satisfaction.”
Although there is clear overlap in the HP and 3Com portfolio, Martin Jones, director and Co-Founder of LAN3, a 3Com Gold partner with larger clients within education, government and the emergency services adds, “We have talked to many of our customers and we were surprised by how excited and pleased they all are by the announcement.”
Jones points to the potential for more investment in technology, a wider product portfolio and longer term vision for a cohesive networking strategy. LAN3 which until recently was exclusively a 3Com partner believes that it’s still too early to call on product withdrawal.
“There is overlap on everything under 10gig,” comments Jones, “but HP will be very pleased to get 3Com’s XRN High Resilience technology which they currently lack,” he adds.
Integration skills
LAN3 is taking proactive steps to join the HP community and Jones believes that channel partners with good 3Com integration skills will be in demand although he stresses the deal needs to move forward quickly to stop customers sitting on purchase orders while they wait to see what happens.
The disaster claims were also treated with a little skepticism by Josie Sephton, principal analyst at Freeform Dynamics who points out, “Like any type of acquisition, from an enterprise perspective, they take time to filter through. Vendors are initially focused on integrating both companies and looking at product strategy… these things just don’t happen overnight.”
Sephton believes that sometimes vendors during M&A fail to communicate quickly enough to enterprise customers and channel partners to scotch potential fears but it is often inevitable especially during the early part of any deal.
