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HP To Acquire 3com For $2.7 Billion
An anonymous reader writes "HP and 3Com Corporation today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase 3Com, a leading provider of networking switching, routing and security solutions, at a price of $7.90 per share in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $2.7 billion. The terms of the transaction have been approved by the HP and 3Com boards of directors."
I'm more surprised when someone *doesn't* talk, to be honest.
I couldn't wait to find out which company HP would destroy next.
Given what is left of HP after the hurricane Carly destroyed the place.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I can't wait for 500MB driver packages, 234454 running background processes and 7 tray icons required to configure the hardware.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
*breaks down sobbing*
I need a hug!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
3com, we hardly knew-- ...Well, I guess we did know you. So long.
What happens when there are no companies left to merge? You get China.
The iPhone is the number one smartphone in the market by the metric that matters most to Apple: net profit.
And they sell overpriced x86 boxes to a niche market segment.
That would be the "profitable" niche - and they appear to have taken over the "profitable" corner of every game board they play on.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
As someone who is going through HP's Work Force Reduction, it was a shock to me too. I'll just bet my 88K salary put them over the edge for this buy. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Buying paper plates won't earn HP any money. Buying 3Com will.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
All the while Apple sews up more and more lines in the consumer electronics market and Jobs smiles subtly. It's almost as if he knows what happens once we've consolidated everything in the datacenter.
Apple does nothing in the datacenter or networking and these companies do little in consumer electronics. I doubt the merger will mean much to Apple.
As an ex 10 year gold partner of 3Com (left this year), I can say their quality of goods has gone downhill for the past 3 years. There were nice margins in their equipment but their Layer 2 and 3 switches and cores were plagued with problems out of the box or after just a few months of usage in datacenters and enterprise. Numerous port deaths, uplink failures, stacking communication issues, etc...
The NBX100 was revolutionary, and they still run like champs, however the new NBX and V IP series chasis became junk. Numerous VXWorks drive failures and PRI cards were constantly losing chassis connections. Not to mention the RMA process was wretched.
Personally, I believe 3Com's downfall was to go against Cisco by undercutting on price which lead to cost cutting on manufacturing and high deviations. Basically putting them on par with Linksys, DLink, and NetGear.
I hope HP turns them around in certain areas as it would be nice to possibly have decent manageable copper/fabric switching, especially for blades, at a more competitive price for budget concise decision makers that prefer HP in their shops.
In the world of computers it's usually a bit of both.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
'So, why was it we busted our collective asses this year? Someone?'
Because you are young, foolish, and naive and believe that hard work and diligence means something to a corporation. :)
But don't worry; you will grow out of it
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Well, yes, Apple is a consumer in the datacenter market. So is WalMart. So is Burger King.
Back in the Dot.Com era, there were plenty of companies out there that were all hype with little to show for it. I would continuously ask myself "Why does this crap sell?". Then the crash came, the companies that were nothing but hype were the first against the wall, they went away, the world went back to normal, and I said "Oh, now I understand!"
Now, while Apple continues to sell slightly better than mediocre products for 10X what they're worth, on hype alone, I keep asking myself "Why?" With the economy in a slide, and history apparently repeating itself once again, I'm preparing, once again, to understand...
MHO
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
As somebody who was forced to use dial-up at home until 2005 (no broadband was available), I can attest that US Robotics modems were the best after the buyout as well. Connections virtually never dropped, they worked in every OS I threw at them, and they always made the best of the fact that the phone line wouldn't accommodate better than 28.8... Now that I think about it, the two I owned were outstanding, but I still don't miss them even a little.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.