As Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) prepares to split in two, it aims to boost its share of the US$38 billion networking market dominated by Cisco Systems Inc.
The centerpiece of the effort is new software built on HP’s acquisition of Aruba Networks Inc that would let clients manage entire networks with a single app, instead of a patchwork of tools. HP is also revamping its sales staff — merging teams and dangling incentives to make sure clients are pitched on the full range of the company’s technologies.
“There is lots of market share that we can gain,” HP chief executive Meg Whitman, who is to lead HP Enterprise, which has about US$54 billion annual revenue, said in an interview. “We are a No. 2 player. Big difference between us and No. 1 — I think we’ve got a really great portfolio, and we’re heading right to where the market is moving, which is wired and wireless.”
The effort began under Whitman’s predecessor, Mark Hurd, who spent more than US$2 billion on networking vendors, including 3Com.
Even so, HP grew sales in networking by less than 10 percent over four years, with Cisco offering a more complete package of products.
Cisco still commanded 49.7 percent of the global enterprise networking-equipment market last year, while HP had 8.3 percent and Aruba Networks Inc. 1.7 percent, Gartner Inc has reported.
To close the gap, Whitman bought Aruba last month for US$2.5 billion.
Aruba, which makes wireless equipment for large companies, hotels and universities, is to form the backbone of HP Networking, as the new business is to be called.
Former Aruba CEO Dominic Orr is leading the effort. Boosting networking sales is crucial for HP Enterprise, which is to separate from the more consumer-focused HP Inc later this year.
Aruba will be “a Trojan horse to ramp up their networking business,” said Woo Jin Ho, an Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. “It is a way for them to try and get their campus switching business back on front. We are literally in the first innings of a five-year replacement cycle.”
HP Networking had US$2.63 billion in sales in the past fiscal year, just 2.3 percent of total revenue, while Aruba had revenue of US$728.9 million, growing at 30 percent annually on average for the past five years.
That compares with Cisco’s sales of US$24.1 billion across switches, routers and wireless equipment in its most recent fiscal period.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
RSS