HP Says Cisco Ignores Customers By Going It Alone

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Hewlett-Packard on Friday said Cisco's decision to break the long-term relationship between the two companies marks a return to a proprietary attitude toward business and will hurt customers.

Instead, HP said it and its customers can succeed without relying on any one networking platform, including Cisco's.

It's a message close to the heart of HP's solution providers, who say that the vendor's strength in server and storage combined with its growing ProCurve networking business make the divorce between HP and Cisco a cause for optimism.

Keith Goodwin, senior vice president of Cisco's Worldwide Partner Organization,, said in a blog post on Thursday that Cisco notified HP that it will not renew HP's System Integrator contract when it expires on April 30, 2010, resulting in HP no longer being a Cisco Certified Channel or Global Service Alliance partner.

HP, in a statement issued on Friday, shrugged off the move by Cisco, calling it a proprietary move that is not in customers' best interest.

The statement read, "History has proven that customers and the market demand both coopetition and collaboration between IT vendors. Most major players compete in one deal and partner in others to best serve clients' needs. We do not believe it is in the customer's best interest to take a proprietary stance.

"We will provide clients with consulting, integration, management and support services for their heterogeneous environments and ensure that our hardware and software platforms are optimized for all leading networking platforms.

"Our strategy and platforms will continue to be market driven to create advantage today and into the future for our clients."

The long-expected break between HP and Cisco came as no surprise in the wake of Cisco's decision to tie servers, storage, and networking into a single platform it call Unified Computing System, or UCS.

That move, which is bringing Cisco into competition with former partner HP's own server and storage business, is being countered by HP's pending acquisition of networking vendor 3Com.

The split between the two vendors will spur HP to focus more resources on its networking business, which will be a boon to customers looking for alternatives to Cisco and its expensive service contracts, HP solution providers said.

Cisco will always control the core networking market, said Bob Venero, CEO of Future Tech, a Holbrook, N.Y.-based solution provider and partner to both HP and Cisco.

"But take a look at the edge of the network," Venero said. "There's where the opportunity is, especially with products that offer differentiation. This will force HP to focus more on ProCurve, and provide its partners more resources and education. That's an opportunity for VARs."

Talking Cisco with customers means running into a lot of competition, Venero said. "Today, if you talk networking with a customer, you're competing with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who are talking Cisco. If you go in with HP, you can talk ProCurve, and soon 3Com."

While Cisco has the largest share of the networking market, HP has one huge advantage in the lifetime guarantee it offers on its ProCurve switches, solution providers said.

That is a big advantage said Scott Hansen, sales manager for enterprise solutions at Melillo Consulting, a Somerset, N.J.-based solution provider and HP partner.

"HP's lifetime warranty is for next-day service and phone support, but that's no big deal for customers," Hansen said. "If someone loses a switch, they don't care. They keep an extra in their closet. But a lot of enterprise customers who are cutting costs are looking at ProCurve, especially at the network edge, because Cisco's maintenance contracts are expensive."

A lifetime warranty means big cost savings for HP customers, Venero said.

"In an economic downturn, people are looking for alternatives," he said. "If a customer doesn't need a maintenance contract for a switch, that's a huge differentiator."

Next: HP Partners To Cisco: Bring It On!

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