HP To Take On Cisco

Last week I mentioned how Cisco was entering the server market and how this was just the continuation of a diversification trend we've already been seeing. I also mentioned how more examples would be popping up. Another already has: HP is coming out with data switches built for datacenter applications.

HP, a fixture for decades in datacenter server racks, is broadening the role of its ProCurve networking arm in those compute-intensive environments just as Cisco is about to step into the datacenter server fray. Cisco's 'California' blade servers, which will reportedly integrate switching, application processing, and virtualization in a single platform, are expected late in the second quarter.

Well, that didn't take long, did it? Of course, this will expand the strain that must be developing in the relationship between the two companies ?€" and is likely a forerunner of how things will go in the entire industry. Neither Cisco nor HP has jumped on this without considerable planning ahead of time. That would be as silly as saying that Oracle quickly and casually entered co-development with HP or that if Google is actually developing a router, the decision would be quick and an expression of fleeting whim.

If you ask direct marketing experts, two of the biggest motivations for people to actually do something are fear and greed. That's exactly what we're seeing being displayed in high tech right now. The world's economy is spooking them far more than any CEO, banker, or government official is willing to admit, and investors so insist on the profits of uninterrupted growth that they stop being able to recognize whether such expansion is possible, let alone reasonable.

So server companies get into networking hardware and software companies get into jointly providing optimized servers. Don't be surprised if mobile companies start offering client systems -- oh, wait, they already do in the form of netbooks and handhelds. It's going to get ugly over the next few years.

Jousting image courtesy of Erik Sherman, all rights reserved.