When Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) announced the $2.7 billion purchase of 3Com Corp., it let the world know that H-P intends to compete fully with Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) in the corporate data center.

With its strength in Ethernet, 3Com (COMS) gives HP a major piece of the pie, but it still needs a few more slices if it wants to be a one-stop-shop for data centers. One such slice it might go after next is application acceleration, said Catharine Trebnick, a senior research analyst with Avian Securities.

Application acceleration appliances speed up the delivery of programs from a data center to the people using it, using methods such as balancing the workload across machines.

Prior to HP’s announcement yesterday, many analysts speculated publicly traded F5 Networks Inc. (FFIV), a leader in this space, was a likely acquisition target, but most now have soured on that idea.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Cash-strapped consumers have been slow to buy personal computers in the recession. But with the launch of Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) new Windows 7 operating system Thursday, PC makers are aiming to reverse that trend–and then some.

Companies are expecting that Windows 7’s improved features over earlier Microsoft operating systems, including Vista and XP, will lure more consumers into stores. And they are betting that heightened demand will allow them to stanch recent price declines in the market.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Dell Inc. (DELL), Toshiba America Inc. and Acer Inc., among others, are releasing a flood of high-end laptops with slim cases and glossy designs, and new one-piece touch-screen desktops, that they hope consumers will be willing to pay a premium for.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Many big tech hardware makers are expanding into services. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) last year bought Electronic Data Systems; Dell (DELL) agreed last month to buy Perot Systems; and Xerox (XRX) cut a deal for Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), also last month.

Software giant Oracle (ORCL), however, is expanding into hardware, and has no interest in buying a services company, said Chief Executive Larry Ellison at an event for financial analysts on Thursday.

“We are really brilliant or we’re idiots,” Ellison said of his company’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems (JAVA), a deal that is currently being held up by European antitrust regulators.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Google Inc., a champion of the belief that advertising should be less about art and more about science, is embracing its inner creative side.

As it searches for new growth, the company in recent months has focused more on creating custom ad campaigns spanning multiple Google (GOOG) services for big spenders including Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Ford Motor Co. (F).

Since the summer, Google has helped J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) and PepsiCo Inc.’s (PEP) Quaker Oats unit launch ad campaigns on YouTube and on some of the hundreds of thousands of sites across which Google sells display ads, along with search ads.

As part of the shift, Google is thinking up and tailoring more ad campaigns in close consultation with ad agencies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

And then there were five–defections from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its climate–change policy, that is.

Apple (AAPL) today resigned its membership in the Chamber “effective immediately.” That’s a harsher tone than the other departures–three utilities said they’d let their membership lapse at the end of the year, and Nike (NIKE) simply quit the Chamber’s board of directors.

At issue, again, is the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to the Obama administration’s climate policy, most notably the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.

Apple has recently been on a green crusade to catch up to tech rivals Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) which have a shinier environmental reputation. And of course, Al Gore is on the Apple board.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Indian technology-outsourcing companies no longer just want to serve their clients’ computing departments–they want to be them.

For years, India’s big tech firms positioned themselves as a cheap alternative to U.S. and European competitors for tasks such as software maintenance and database upgrades. They were content to take whatever work companies like Citigroup Inc. (C) and BT Group PLC parceled out to offshore specialists.

But the days of 30 percent annual revenue growth from such work are over, a casualty of the global economic downturn and increasing competition in the tech services industry world-wide. Now, Indian companies such as Infosys Technologies Ltd. (INFY) and Wipro Ltd. (WIT) are racing to broaden the services they offer and compete for higher-level work that usually goes to larger rivals including International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Accenture Ltd. (ACN).

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Xerox Corp. (XRX) and its new chief executive, Ursula Burns, unveiled the biggest acquisition in the company’s 103-year history, joining a wave of hardware makers expanding into services with a $5.6 billion deal for Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS).

Aimed at snapping Xerox out of its funk, the acquisition and integration of ACS–which has 74,000 workers compared with Xerox’s 54,000–is a big gamble by a new CEO. But Ms. Burns, a Xerox veteran who took over in July, is seeking new markets as Xerox’s traditional copier and printer business faces pressure from rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ).

Investors frowned on the stock-and-cash deal, sending Xerox’s shares down 14 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading. The company is taking on more than $2 billion in debt, paying $1.8 billion in cash and tapping the capital markets to finance $3 billion.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) Chief Executive Mark Hurd said his company was poised to grow faster than the overall technology market amid signs spending on several critical H-P products was beginning to pick up.

“We feel in the end, we’re pretty well positioned to go out in the marketplace and win,” Mr. Hurd said during a presentation at the Palo Alto, Calif., company’s financial analyst day. “H-P’s best days are ahead of it, not behind it.”

Mr. Hurd added that H-P’s performance would be driven in large part by the overall tech market, which is starting to show some signs of life, and that the company would grow more quickly than the market “if in fact that growth presents itself.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to figure out who sent five Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) laptop computers to West Virginia Governor Joe Mahchin a few weeks ago, with state officials worried that they may contain malicious software.

Sources familiar with the investigation say other states have been targeted too, with HP laptops mysteriously ordered for officials in 10 states.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

There were a flurry of stories over the weekend about the electoral dreams of former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman and former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina. Whitman is the current Republican front-runner in the race to be be the next governor of California. Fiorina has formed a committee to mull a run against Barbara Boxer for a U.S. Senate seat. Both are supposed to bring financial savvy to the government roles they seek, although both left amid serious questions about their job performance.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CFO Cathie Lesjak says the company does not expect the debut of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows 7 to trigger a major PC refresh cycle.

“We think it looks like a good product, one that folks will really like, but we don’t think it is different enough to drive a refresh cycle,” she said in an interview this afternoon with Tech Trader Daily following the company’s Q3 earnings report. “It’s kind of the way we though about Vista. Over time, folks will move. Others are calling for more of a hockey-stick effect, but we’re not counting on it at this point.”

Meanwhile, Lesjak says the company believes business conditions overall are stabilizing. She said U.S. and China demand stabilized last quarter, and that the trend spread into the Asia Pacific region in the July quarter.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Worldwide PC shipments fell 5 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to market research firm Gartner. That exceeded the company’s previous forecast of a 9.8 percent decline.

Gartner said the better-than-expected results reflect “a small sign of a PC market recovery in terms of shipment volumes in some regions.” Consistent with comments Intel (INTC) made on its post-earnings conference call yesterday, Gartner says demand was better-than-expected in both the U.S. and Asia-Pacific, while Europe remained weak.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), which had a 2.8 percent gain in units on a year-over-year basis in the quarter, remained the market share leader, with 19.6 percent, up from 18.1 percent a year ago.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

If you believe one Washington State software company, PC giant Dell (DELL) is coming out with a netbook that uses Google’s (GOOG) operating system instead of Microsoft (MSFT) software.

Google Android OS was developed for smart phones, but it’s proven attractive to makers of other devices, like netbooks, for its potential to break their dependency on Microsoft software and Intel (INTC) chips.

Unlike Microsoft’s Windows software–which most netbooks currently use–Android is free. And it runs on chips that use ARM architecture, which are made by companies other than Intel. As the WSJ reported in April, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has been looking at Android for possible future netbooks.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

As I noted earlier this month, the recent Cisco Systems (CSCO) decision to to move into the server business came with the risk that it might irritate both IBM (IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), both of whom control big pieces of the server business while also reselling Cisco networking gear. In my previous piece, I noted that there was a growing belief on the Street that IBM was likely to partner with Brocade (BRCD) and possibly others in an effort wean itself away from selling Cisco switches to its customers.

Well, today IBM made it clear that is is pressing ahead with its anti-Cisco strategy.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) on Friday announced that it will take a charge of 1-2 cents a share in its fiscal second quarter ending April related to a patent dispute with Cornell University and the Cornell Research Foundation. HP noted that on March 30 the U.S. District Court overseeing the case cut the amount of an early jury verdict in the case in favor of Cornell to $53 million from $184 million.

HP also said that “after a review of the preliminary financial results of the first two months this fiscal quarter,” its financial outlook–excluding the charge–remains unchanged.

Read the rest of this post