HP wraps up 3Com buy

Computing giant HP has finalised its acquisition of networking hardware vendor 3Com.

The company revealed on Monday that it had completed the process of its US$2.7bn merger deal and that 3Com would be joining forces with its ProCurve networking platform.

HP said that it would give further information on the full extent of 3Com's products, but the company said that the acquisition of 3Com would represent a significant stretch in its converged infrastructure strategy.

The program aims to give HP a presence in every part of the enterprise IT industry, from the user workstation and software level through the networking hardware and into the server and management fields.

CRN reported yesterday that HP has already started consolidating its server and networking distributors in order to take a complete solution set to market.

The completion of the deal also marks the end of an era for 3Com. Founded in 1979, the company hit its peak with sales of modems and networking hardware in the dot-com boom of the late 1990s before seeing a decline in the 21st century.