The 3Com acquisition should raise some concern for HP as the buyer. Are 3Com voice assets worth a share of the purchase price, or will the assets face extinction, or is it worth it to HP to further develop a dinosaur and pipe dream?Maybe it sounds harsh but for a former 3Com dealer that invested sweat, money and time (too much time) I think it's fair. 3Com's voice solutions just didn't get going and it wasn't because of one bad move but many. Make no mistake--we built up a significant customer base with 3Com NBX systems and since have displaced most of them and we were profitable. So why do I think the way I do?
For one, 3Com marketing didn't understand the dynamics of telephony. I can retrieve several years of dealer newsletters that we published and show the insignificant development of the platform. Then, as 3Com abandoned the SMB and concentrated their VCX platform on large enterprise they lost focus. It wasn't the first time 3Com lost focus--remembering they previously blew off large enterprise (Core Builder) in favor of chasing SMBs with NBXs and NIC cards. They burned cash on Kerbango Internet radios and desktop Audreys. When cash wasn't coming in fast enough to cover the company's misadventures, they initiated self-destruction in the existing IPT dealer base that chased many established dealers away while faulting those same dealers for their problems. 3Com's poor product performance and loss of revenues which were too many Returned Material Requests or defective telephony products and lack of IPT development is what killed their ability to grow in telephony which was "3Com's biggest revenue source." They also neglected their development partners, attempting to create solutions for the NBX, and that was the same old partner complaint--"3Com won't give us the information, it's proprietary." Solutions didn't take hold and fast or long enough for customer adoption.
HP I think is an entirely different company and The NBX is pretty much a dead horse that hasn't seen software improvements for nearly a year and the base is eroding. The collateral damage is lost reputation, dealers that got burned once won't get burned again and 3Com never really had the chutzpah to begin with when it came to delivering voice solutions that held up to the ancient test of time.
So there's my take on this deal. So long, goodbye, I'm glad to see you go. Best wishes to HP but I think you should remember: buy low then sell high. I'll bet there may even be some 3Com promotions going on similar to those "Beat Nortel" offers last year, only there aren't any significant numbers of 3Com customers left as there are Nortel.
