HP, Cisco Could Buy Brocade Soon

The competition amongst major players in the networking equipment market is likely to go up in any of them manage to purchase Brocade, a company known for its robust storage and networking solutions. 

Amongst the names potential suitors doing rounds, Hewlett Packard (HP) is been seen as a front runner while some have suggested that Oracle too may in the race after its purchase, earlier this year, of Sun Microsystems.

However, Larry Ellison of Oracle has been quick to squash rumours at the company’s shareholder meeting by mentioning “We are not buying Brocade”.

If HP does manage to get hold of Brocade it may change the competitive landscape in the market where Cisco and HP are major rivals with both trying their best to draw customers by offering data center systems which include computing networking and storage.

Industry watchers say that if Brocade goes to HP then it is likely bring several technological offerings for HP and make it more attractive to large enterprise customers.

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Some analysts are of the opinion that while Oracle does intend to develop a more extensive product line that combines both hardware and software, it currently is not very keen on the kind of portfolio Brocade offers as it digresses from its core business strategy.