3Com vs. CiscoNetwork Engineer Thoughts from Around the World |
|
We will see large mergers in IT and other industries from time to time but this is the first I have witnessed that challenged an interest of mine. Cisco is watching the events unfold as HP acquires 3Com in an obvious challenge to the networking giant.
My experience with 3Com was back in the 1990s when the 3com Wizard was basically the certification you would get from 3Com as a networking expert. Cisco at the time had the fledgling CCIE with about 3000 CCIEs already making a difference in the networking community. Back then I felt the 3com products were inferior to Cisco’s. As I recall 3Com abandoned their customers and basically called it quits leaving a bunch of customers in the lurch. My team at BANI has to scramble to support and replace many clients’ infrastructure gear with Cisco and some Nortel. But much time has passed, so I ask you.
What do you think about 3Com products as they stand today?
How do you think they compare to Cisco’s offerings?
What do you think Cisco should do to retain their market share or grow it?
Would you buy 3Com over Cisco switches? Routers? Wireless?
Please predict what you think the impact will be on the industry in general.
Thanks
Eman (Emmanuel Conde)
CCIE Agent™
CCIE Flyer
302-438-1681
***************************************************************************
Eman,
I think most seasoned network managers remember when 3Com abandoned their entire Enterprise product line and all the customers who got stuck with unsupported gear. 3Com has always been a joke in the network community and they still are. 3Com’s alliance with Huawei is the only element of risk to Cisco’s global dominance.
Having been a CCIE for 10 years, I can say that there have always been those who want to “save money” on their network so they can spend more on servers and software. That actually works for smaller organizations – sometimes. It all comes down to what’s on the line if the network goes down. If a few people can’t access the Internet due to a network outage, who cares? If a 50 billion dollar company loses access to SAP in their data center, that’s a whole different situation.
I’ve been a presales engineer for various resellers ever since I rec’d my CCIE. I recently quit my job at one of largest HP/Cisco resellers and got a new position at the world’s largest IBM reseller. They want to get into the Cisco business and I’m there to build the practice from the ground up. All of the server manufacturers and resellers are blown away by Cisco UCS and Nexus. They see that Cisco has been working on UCS/Nexus covertly for a very long time. IBM will survive. In fact, IBM took a much more responsible approach to Cisco’s UCS announcement than HP did – looks like Cisco and IBM will continue their existing partnership and create new ones based on Data Center 3.0.
HP is a completely different story. Mark Herd, CEO of HP, has decided to cut all ties with Cisco and go it alone. Cisco is on the path to removing all of the HP OEM MCS Servers from its product line. If you try to order one from Cisco right now, expect very long delays for shipment. Soon they will be gone. The replacement will be Cisco’s new UCS rackable non-blade servers and it will be a big improvement over the HP DL series.
To be honest, I don’t see a place for HP in the long term. The most impressive part of HP is now called Agilent. HP made the mistake of switching all of their Enterprise servers over to the Itanic (Itanium 2) processor – don’t think that will survive. Under Carly Fiorina, HP made a pact with Microsoft. The result was de-emphasizing the HP9000/Superdome server line and focusing entirely on Windows servers. If you are UNIX/Linux person like me, then you have no use for HP.
Answer: HP is not a threat to Cisco. Cisco is a threat to HP.
From Charles
******************************************************************
******************************************************************
3Com is stronger in data center and basic routing and switching product, the real strength is from the H3C product line, which is actually Huawei in China. Huawei has a bigger market share in China then Cisco in routing and switching market and their product line is similar to Cisco (but no unified communication). They other name brand under 3 come is Tipping point, which is one of the leading company in security.
They can compete with Cisco in the Data center and Routing and Switching, IPS etc, not unified Communication yet. When combined with HP, HP have their own line of network gear (Procurve) which is not strong in Data center or Core routing and switching, but are strong in Wireless and on the access layer. Depending on how HP is going to group the product together, they might come up with a product line (Procurve+H3C+3com) that can get some shares from Cisco.
It’s more cost effective, which is what a lot of enterprise is looking for. Also, HP is strong in datacenter design and hosting, which can push some of the network products with their servers.
Cisco market share will degrade for sure, but depending on how HP going to join the products together, how much market that HP will get from Cisco is yet to be predict.
From Al
******************************************************************
******************************************************************
Eman,
3Com have very good products. I have worked with their switches (4400 series) and the 3Com NBX PBX (Unified Communications) and they are quite user friendly. With HP acquiring 3Com, this will be a big challenge for Cisco. Going by recent trends where Cisco acquired Linksys, Nortell and now Tandberg, Cisco was better placed at taking over 3Com than another competitor. HP being in mainly in the Computer Hardware, Storage and accessories industry (Dell, IBM, Toshiba being their main competitors) venturing into networking will surely raise the level of competition. I predict a reduction in Cisco's Global market share in the short to mid-term.
As usual, for any firm to retain market share, they have to be innovative and come up with new products. I believe Cisco has numerous products besides networking devices. The Cisco Digital Media Services and Cisco Data Centers are products that are potential stars and will be huge revenue generators in the next 5 to 10 years in Emerging Markets.
Regards
From Gatana
******************************************************************
******************************************************************
Hi Eman,
I think 3com offers cheap solutions for none mission critical small or medium offices. I have not seen them deployed in enterprise infrastructures in a while but I'm sure they are out there.
I don't think they offer the robustness that Cisco products offer and as i said in step one above, they are a cheaper alternative for none mission critical deployments.
For Cisco to retain their market share or grow it they have got to reduce the price of their low end switches while maintaining its robustness.
I would always buy Cisco for switches, routers and wireless. Except i am constrained by budget.
Not sure what the impact will be to be honest and i always take the position that a product will be as good as the support it has. HP switches have generally been poorly supported.
Rgds
From Walter
******************************************************************
Return to the top of '3Com vs. Cisco'.
Send us your opinion