Palm purchase: The latest shot fired in HP, Cisco fight?

HP put in a bid this week to purchase Palm for $1.2 billion--adding another form of communication into its arsenal to compete with Cisco. Just last week HP fired shots at Cisco billing its new HP/3Com-combo data center package as 'Cisco-free.'

With its 3Com VoIP offerings and now a play in the mobile devices space, HP is shaping up to be a contender as a complete end-to-end communications vendor according to No Jitter editor Eric Krapf. The company has VoIP through 3Com as well as a data center offering, mobile devices like the once-potential-iPhone-killer Pre through Palm, data lines and even security. Of course, as Krapf notes the brands that HP has acquired to move into the space aren't exactly the industry leaders in their field, but the opportunity is there for HP to relaunch them all as a cohesive offering that will threaten the giants in the space.

For more:
- read the No Jitter post
- see what FierceWireless has to say about the Palm purchase

Related articles:
HP throws guantlet at Cisco
Microsoft and HP launch UC partnership
HP & Alca-Lu sign 10-year deal, will jointly develop IP telephony