Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

HP On Right Track With Two Network OSes: Page 3 of 3

The claim is that HP Engineering is able to make cheaper and better chips than the open market when targeted at a specific point in the market. There is evidence to support this--HP manufactures a vast range of products, from printers to servers to tablets, and has extensive manufacturing expertise that provides market leadership in those categories. Consider that HP is able to successfully compete against Asian manufacturers such as Lenovo and Acer, and it's a reasonable claim.

Since the ProCurve product includes a range of chassis-based switches such as the E8200/E5400/E3500, the product is targeted at the mid-size business with relatively simple networking needs. The passive optical backplane that was unveiled at Interop has the primary purpose of reducing the cost of ProCurve switches. The optical backplane uses standard plastic molding and laser etching to reduce the manufacturing cost of the backplane itself to a fraction of conventional backplanes.

The A-Series products have enterprise features and capabilities, and is targeted at complex and demanding networks. The E-series product is targeted at low-complexity and price-sensitive customers. There are two operating systems, with different features and capabilities. The ProCurve operating system has been plagued by bugs and has a poor reputation for software reliability, and many engineers are reluctant to embrace ProCurve on these experiences.

HP seems to be applying manufacturing expertise for design, and operational capacity for volume, to produce the E-series at a price point that provides a competitive edge against the other vendors. Vendors, such as Arista, will be using merchant silicon and have only their own operating systems to differentiate themselves from other players. Their hardware pricing will be determined by merchant silicon. On the other hand, Cisco's recent woes with long development times on products such the Supervisor 2T for the Catalyst 6500 suggest that using your own silicon is also fraught with challenges.

It must also be challenging within HP Networking to have two competing product lines. At the point where the product lines overlap, there must be significant friction between divisions that want their products to "go to customer." Over the years, Cisco internal sales teams have struggled to position the C4500 and C6500 products to customers, often breaking into public view of customers as ugly little spats. Customers find the overlap confusing, and it takes a great deal of time to to research each product. Many customers talk of simpler purchasing decisions as a away of saving money, but the mantra of "choice" seems to continue.

One thing seems clear: HP Networking hasn't convinced the wider market that both Comware and ProCurve operating systems are necessary, and most network architects expect HP to migrate its product line to Comware. On the other hand, the companies that will buy the ProCurve products aren't likely to have network architects who can evaluate these choices. Many businesses need low-cost and low-complexity switches that have chassis features for reliability and performance, and these customers may be well-served by ProCurve.