HP throws Cisco a curve ball

Hardware vendor HP is targeting disaffected Cisco partners with an updated range of ProCurve switches, routers and control boxes.

HP said it would add a Secure Router 7000dl series of WAN routers, an updated 5300 series of switches incorporating HP "virus throttling" technology and a wireless access controller module for the 5300 series to its ProCurve portfolio.

Amol Mitra, worldwide product marketing director for ProCurve Networking, suggested HP was trying to stir "cutthroat competition" among Cisco resellers.

“[That's] an advantage for us. We’re already seeing interest from the second tier of Cisco partners. Cisco has over 70 percent of the market. It knows that most of the time it’s going to get the business and it doesn’t care if its resellers cut margins to the bone to get business," Mitra claimed.

Mark Berends, South Pacific marketing and sales manager at ProCurve Networking, said the new range gave resellers a "complete" product offering for SMBs.

“We don’t force our partners to sign up for it, but with this new range we want people to lead with our products," Berends added.

He said HP would further encourage its resellers with a training and certification programme and "very aggressive" demonstration pricing in the next few months.

Susana Vidal, a telecommunications and networking market analyst at IDC, ProCurve held eight percent of the Australian market in the third quarter of 2004.

Berends hoped to double the company’s share. “Our switches and routers have lifetime warranties, lifetime software upgrades and are half the price of our competitors. We think that doubling our market share is more than possible," he said.