HP Networking's Haas Aims At Simplicity
Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager of HP Networking, has had a good year. In 2010, Hewlett-Packard closed its acquisition of 3Com, dramatically expanding its networking portfolio and sales, and also continued to log progress with its own LAN products. In the company's fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Oct. 31, HP's networking revenue grew 227 percent with the former 3Com portfolio included. Even without the new offerings, sales grew 50 percent from a year earlier. This week, Haas took time to talk with IDG News Service about that growth and the company's vision for networking.
Wed, December 08, 2010
IDG News Service — Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager of HP Networking, has had a good year. In 2010, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) closed its acquisition of 3Com (COMS), dramatically expanding its networking portfolio and sales, and also continued to log progress with its own LAN products. In the company's fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Oct. 31, HP's networking revenue grew 227 percent with the former 3Com portfolio included. Even without the new offerings, sales grew 50 percent from a year earlier. This week, Haas took time to talk with IDG News Service about that growth and the company's vision for networking.
IDGNS -- What sort of traction are you seeing now that 3Com is fully integrated into HP?
HAAS -- We've seen sequential share gain in every area where we compete: wireless, core switching, core routing -- and well over 458 of our top 1,000 accounts have already initiated proof-of-concepts with us, where they've taken the product, and they're evaluating the product, we're working with them on it, on defining a potential architecture solution for them.
IDGNS -- In the integration process, have you been able to retain all of the 3Com and HP products?
HAAS -- We announced zero end-of-life products when we rolled out our consolidated road maps for customers. As long as the customer wants the product, we're going to support it and offer it, and thus far we've had very good response from it.
IDGNS -- Tell me about the role of networking in HP today.
HAAS -- I've been in this role roughly two-and-a-half years, and one of the mandates I had before taking this role was to make sure it was part of mainstream HP. Prior to that, I was head of strategy and of corporate development for the company and saw this as probably one of our biggest opportunities to generate shareholder value and also really transform an industry.
My peers are the guys who run the server group and the guys and the gals who run the storage group. So as we present a total solution for customers on servers, storage, and networking, it is no longer a side business.
IDGNS -- What have you gained so far, and what do you expect in the future, from the former 3Com development center in China?
HAAS -- For any enterprise out there, both big and small, we have the best products, that are the easiest to manage, that have lower power consumption, that are more secure, and at a much lower total cost of ownership.
