HPs Streak of Acquisitions Continue

On November 11, 2009 it was announced that HP and 3Com corporation have entered into an agreement under which HP will purchase 3Com. For those of you who are not familiar with 3Com and its line of business, 3Com is a leader in the provision of Networking, Switching, Routing and Security Solutions. The total acquisition took place at a price of $2.7Billion.

HP today, stands as the biggest company in terms of revenue, in the global IT industry with Annual Revenues in excess of $118Million in FY'08. HP has  achieved its size by growing organically as well as making 116 acquisitions since its inception in Palo Alto California in 1939, by two young entrepreneurs Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. The largest acquisition by HP was in 2002 when it brought Compaq for $25 Billion and as a result overtaking Dell and becoming the largest company in the Personal Computing Market Worldwide.

HP also made acquisitions of companies like VeriFone, Proctor and Gamble IT, Ericsson IT, Snapfish the famous Photo Sharing Service Provider, VoodooPC, Left Hand Networks and most recently 3Com. Purposely left out in this list is the second biggest Acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, commonly referred to as EDS, which was brought in August of 2008 at a price tag of around $14 Billion. EDS being a leader in its Industry of Information Technology Consulting, helped to strengthen HPs already strong foothold in the IT Industry.

With HP continuing to acquire all the companies that come its way, what remains to be seen is whether the rapid expansion strategy by HP proves to be a recipe to success or they should have rather worked on creating and strengthening a niche!