Four mergers that could affect your network

HP-3Com

Hewlett-Packard, whose ProCurve division makes switches and routers, announced Nov. 11 it is offering to buy 3Com for US$2.7 billion. Although 3Com has a wider variety of products, including the TippingPoint intrusion prevention systems, analysts and users predict some products will be redundant.

Avaya-Nortel

Avaya, which stopped supporting its Cajun line of switches two years ago, offered in July to buy the enterprise assets of Nortel Networks Corp. This would add switches, routers and firewalls to Avaya’s basket of goods. But the deal is subject to approval from Industry Canada and analysts are concerned some voice communications products could be dropped.

Cisco-Tandberg

When Cisco announced TelePresence three years ago, the product did not work well with kit from other manufacturers and Cisco had no desktop video offerings. Cisco plans to change this and has offered buy video conferencing manufacturer Tandberg to help expand its product line and improve interoperability.

Oracle-Sun

In a deal that has alarmed European regulators, Oracle offered US$7.4 billion for Sun Microsystems, which makes the Java programming language, rich Internet applications, the Solaris variant of the Unix server operating system and servers. Oracle already controls a large portion of enterprise software with its acquisitions of customer relationship management vendor Siebel in 2005, middleware developer BEA and the HR software maker Peoplesoft in 2004, and the Sun deal would give it control of Java and Solaris.