HP Acquires 3Com; Does Dell Have Counter?

HP announced today that it is purchasing networking equipment maker 3Com for $2.7 billion and adding a new set of products which could help it fight in enterprise / data center customer opportunities.

The deal, however, puts even greater distance between HP and Dell both in revenues, but in breadth of product offerings. Dell followed HP’s aquisition of enterprise service provider EDS with the purchase of Perot systems. In the networking space, there does not seem to be a clear “me too” deal. Networking behemoth Cisco would likely be the aquirer, not an acquiree and its unlikely that it would want to enter the computer systems space.

Stay tuned, intrepid Observer readers – we’ll be on the lookout for possible targets as Dell looks to catch up to HP once again!