HP+Alcatel 10 Yr Deal: Should Cisco worry or hurry?
By Tarry Singh at 18 June, 2009, 1:55 pm
One analyst said the alliance was a smart move by HP, which is finding itself in a heated competition with Cisco in the data center, and also needs to catch up to Cisco and IBM in the area of cloud computing.
Cisco, long known for its networking capabilities, made a significant step into the data center when it unveiled its UCS (Unified Computing System), an all-in-one offering that includes Cisco-branded blade servers and networking technology, as well as capabilities from such partners as VMware, EMC and Intel.
The move also alienated other partners, in particular HP, which shot back soon afterward with its own all-in-one data center offering, the BladeSystem Matrix.
“Cisco really took the gloves off with HP with the UCS, and that was intended,” said James Staten, an analyst with Forrester Research.
The growth of converged data centers and cloud computing is putting a greater premium on networking, and while HP has been investing in its ProCurve networking products for a while, it can’t match up with what Cisco has to offer, Staten said.
Teaming up with Alcatel-Lucent expands those networking capabilities, Staten said.
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