Network business of HP is open to attack

Marius Haas who was heading network business of Hewlett-Packard and implemented the acquisition of 3Com which made HP by the direct competitor of Cisco Systems goes to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts investment company.

Haas will leave Hewlett-Packard on June 1. Now there is a search of his successor, said in the statement of HP. Will head network business of Bethany Mayer, the vice president for international marketing and alliances of the direction of corporate servers, storage systems and networks.

Leaving Haas completes the period of considerable expansion of network division of HP and occurs after a number of changes in company management which took place as a result of Leo Apotheker arrival as the CEO.

Last month in HP there was a new appointment - Martin Homlish, the former colleague of Leo Apotheker on work in SAP, received a position of the executive vice president and marketing director. Recently the company appointed Thomas Hogan the chief on marketing and the strategy of corporate business, also carried out a number of appointments of new regional managers in the Pacific Rim, North and South America and region of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).

On a photo Marius Haas

As a result of acquisition of 3Com in April, 2010 of HP received wide range of products of routing, security and other devices which can bring the company to competitive level with Cisco. Haas supervised this acquisition after it was appointed the senior vice president and the general manager of network division of HP in 2008. From 2003 to 2008 he worked in HP as the senior vice president, directed the strategy of the company, was the head of corporate merges and absorption.

However, according to the analyst of Yankee Group Zeus Kerravala, HP did not get yet all advantages which are possible as a result of this purchase.

"I do not think that effects of acquisition of 3Com... were such simple as it is represented to them", - Kerravala told. The issue of integration 3Par – the storage systems specialist which was also purchased last year can complicate a task of HP, he told. The company has all components to be the dominating supplier of data processing centers - storage systems, servers, management tools, networks and security systems, but it is necessary to integrate them in something bigger, than just a set of components, Kerravala told.

The foundation for this fight was laid by Cisco, having entered server business by means of the Unified Computing System line, partnership with EMC and VMware in the field of storage and virtualization. HP and Cisco, along with IBM, Dell and others, will face as potential creators of comprehensive solutions of data processing centers now.

Leaving Haas was probably a part of the general policy of Apoteker - to bring the command into HP, Kerravala told. He also considers that the one who has wide experience should replace Haas in a top of the leadership in network business: "The network in the field of calculations is other discipline. To suppliers of calculations to enter business of networks very difficult and vice versa".