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Larry Ellison is many things, but never a quitter. He will buy Sun in the end, but the question is why.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Technology stocks fell Thursday as a harsh view of the semiconductor market and pessimism about the economic recovery contributed to broad losses across the sector.

This storage specialist is doing just fine on its own. But the stock may have gotten ahead of the business.

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BloggingStocks: Amazon, Inc. (AMZN) is in the clouds. So are Google, Inc. (GOOG), EMC (EMC) and Cisco (CSCO). Now, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) is joining them, having announced on Tuesday its new Windows Azure cloud computing system. The new product will be ... Read more

Welcome to the Wealth Daily Weekend Edition — our insights from the week in investing and links to our most-read Wealth Daily and sister publication articles.[More...]

Hewlett Packard Company (HPQ) is planning to take over networking gear maker 3Com Corporation (COMS). The acquisition, valued at $2.7 billion, enables HP to challenge networking leader Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) on its own turf. HP’s current networking products, sold under the ProCurve brand, generate around $1 billion in annual sales (less than 1% of the [...]

(HPQ) Hewlett-Packard to Acquire 3Com

Hewlett Packard Company (HPQ) is planning to take over networking gear maker 3Com Corporation (COMS). The acquisition, valued at $2.7 billion, enables HP to challenge networking leader Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) on its own turf. HP’s current networking products, sold under the ProCurve brand, generate around $1 billion in annual sales ...

Hewlett Packard Company (HPQ) is planning to take over networking gear maker 3Com Corporation (COMS). The acquisition, valued at $2.7 billion, enables HP to challenge networking leader Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) on its own turf.

HP’s current networking products, sold under the ProCurve brand, generate around $1 billion in annual sales (less than 1% of the company’s total revenue). The product line lacks competitive data center switches, which makes it hard to take market share from well-entrenched Cisco.

3Com's expertise is in networking products for data centers, which supports HP's ProCurve networking equipment. Although the company has seen better times, it has been beefing up its portfolio by utilizing its design capabilities in low-cost China. The company is, therefore, in a position to compete aggressively on price. 3Com’s challenges include its poor brand value in American and European markets and its weak position in these geographies.
 
The HP-3Com combination is therefore an ideal fit, in our opinion. If the deal closes, HP will acquire a new capability overnight, strengthen its position in China and grow at its competitor’s expense. 3Com will benefit from HP’s superior brand value and find a broader market for its new products.

Cisco, for its part, has been looking for growth in HP’s traditional markets. To supplement its earlier efforts, the company recently announced an agreement with EMC Corp. (EMC) (a storage giant) and VMWare (a player in the virtualization space). The idea behind the agreement was the bundling of computers, storage, networking and software solutions, thus protecting market share, improving growth prospects and keeping competitors at bay.

Even if the deal closes, Cisco will remain the largest player by far, although it will see much tougher competition. The company’s organization and slow decision-making process could complicate matters further.

HP’s shares slid 32 cents and 3Coms’ jumped $2 in response to the news. Cisco shareholders did not show any immediate concern.
Read the full analyst report on "HPQ"
Read the full analyst report on "COMS"
Read the full analyst report on "CSCO"
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EMC is extending its Avamar backup software to all parts of an enterprise's infrastructure with clients for PC and Mac desktops and laptops.

The software for automated backup and recovery, which EMC acquired by buying Avamar in 2006, already backs up the contents of corporate servers and uses deduplication to more efficiently store it. Avamar 5.0, available immediately, lets enterprises add the same backup capability to individual client systems and does not require a per-client license.

Tom Dorsey and Tammy DeRosier - Back to Reality

Pat Gelsinger, a top executive who has been with Intel for 30 years, is leaving the company for EMC, an EMC spokeswoman said Monday.

Storage vendor EMC will hire Gelsinger as president and chief operating officer for the company's information infrastructure product portfolio, the spokeswoman said, asking not to be named. Gelsinger, currently co-manager of Intel's core digital enterprise group, has long been a key executive for Intel. He has also held the positions of chief technology officer and research head at Intel.

Cisco and EMC are said to be forming a joint venture company to develop an integrated datacenter platform for computing, networking, and storage.

According to several sources and a post in The Register, the joint venture will be a separate company funded by both Cisco and EMC. The name of the company could not be learned by press time, but sources say Cisco and EMC are actively recruiting sales personnel for it.