Comments on: Hardware guys buying Software today

By: Marc Andreessen Sees Gold Mine in Building Web’s Innards

Marc Andreessen Sees Gold Mine in Building Web’s Innards — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:31:19 +0000

[...] management company that after a few setbacks evolved into a thriving venture that was eventually acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. That gives the duo an opportunity to understand the changing innards of the [...]

By: Complete List of 2007 Web / Technology Acquisitions » The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:31:38 +0000

[...] is an IT/data center automation company. Press Release | TechCrunch | GigaOm| [...]

By: bob lawblaw

bob lawblaw — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:17:25 +0000

Elad is right, the hardware market seems to be growing more and more difficult to compete in. HOwever, I think HP would do well to integrate their software technologies with the hardware they used to make. It is growing more and more difficult to survive in this global economy, making EDI the answer for the new horizon.

By: Dan P.

Dan P. — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:06:27 +0000

It makes sense as another area in which to gain a competitive advantage.

By: HP-EDS Deal: It’s About The Clouds Baby! - GigaOM

HP-EDS Deal: It’s About The Clouds Baby! - GigaOM — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:35:58 +0000

[...] (via Rich Miller.) * HP bought Opsware, a data center automation software company started by Marc Andreessen, for $1.6 billion in July 2007. * In March 2008, HP announced its data center as a service initiative, targeting large companies. [...]

By: Elad Kehat

Elad Kehat — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 12:18:36 +0000

Rob Freeborn is right in his comment – HP Software isn’t a way for HP to sell more hardware. HP sees its software business as a way to distance itself from Dell, whose hardware margins they can’t beat, and be more like IBM, which salvaged itself by becoming a software and services giant. At least, that’s the message that they communicate internally (I was an HP software employee until a few months ago).

By: Brad O'Neill

Brad O'Neill — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:08:38 +0000

You’re spot-on, Om… However, it would be a mistake to think any of these companies have true grand ’stack integration’ strategies… that’s all marketing BS. As you indicate, this has been happening in the infrastructure space for many years and its an established means of augmenting/replacing internal R&D across a wide spectrum of discrete usage cases that are not ever ‘integrated’ per se (e.g. interface software, management tools, accelerators, file systems, data protection niches, search tools, etc.). Every major player in data center, storage and networking has been quietly adding software intelligence through acquisitions in the $20m-$75m range since I can remember, albeit at a faster clip in the past 24 months, but it just doesn’t receive much attention in more popular media venues. EMC, HP, Cisco and even ’smaller’ players like Brocade have been ravenous in expanding a wide range of capabilities…

In the storage/storage networking industry alone last year I can count north of 30 acquisitions, the vast majority of which were very tiny, low revenue software outfits and were never touted loudly, if at all. The same number for the year prior. Nobody wants to make hay about the fact that they shored up their weakness in (for example) SATA interfaces or iSCSI routing by snapping up XYZ. They just DO it and start shipping it as their own…

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:41:04 +0000

I agree with you – it is especially true in increasingly commoditized markets. look at iphone, nokia and LG prada – all software plays built on fairly commodity hardware. it is all about marrying the software-with-hardware and then basically offering an enhanced experience.

i agree with andrew – telecom is next. BT guys get it, most of our guys don’t.

By: Kudos

Kudos — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:43:29 +0000

Kudos to Marc Andressen for cashing out nicely, unloading a fairly unimpressive, low productivity, perpetually loss making outfit (600 employees mostly in valley and 100 million revenue? that doesn't even begin to make money!) for 16 times sales.

Goes to show how savvy younger generation like Marc Andressen are taking capital out from dumb old houses like HP. I suppose there is some justice to it in the sense of capital moving to smarter hands, where it will be better invested. A fool and his money deserve to be parted, I suppose ...

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:40:06 +0000

HP needs to take some lessons in customer support from Dell…to attract business. Dell will support you almost unless you twist their hands behind their back, whereas HP will only support you if you twist their hands behind their back (badly written tongue twister).

By: greendrake

greendrake — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:28:32 +0000

@Peter, that was Intel Capital, which is their investment arm and makes these types of investments all the time. Not very fun to deal with though.

By: Rob Freeborn

Rob Freeborn — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:00:40 +0000

I’m thinking that the OpsWare purchase is meant to be integrated into the HP OpenView suite, not to pimp their HW…even Mark mentions that it’s going to be part of their SW offering.

By: Andrew Schmitt

Andrew Schmitt — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:27:53 +0000

I think the same trend may apply in Telecom going forward, particularly if IMS catches on.

By: Dilip

Dilip — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:23:47 +0000

‘Stack consolidation’ is rife at the moment, but just like the layer 3 consolidation of the 90’s with Cisco/Synoptics/Wellfleet/Kalpana/DEC (ahh the good old days). I think the winner will be the one who can successfully intergrate it all OR learn when to let it fly on its own, and use it as a cash cow. EMC earlier last year went on a good run with N-layers, Documentum, VMware (although it is spinning it off). I think many a good company has been has been broken by forced intergration strategies. I heard HP’s intergration story and it looks very daunting. They were very eloquent in describing the end-game but I have to admit no real substance on when or how they were going to go about it.

By: Peter Kazanjy

Peter Kazanjy — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:08:27 +0000

It’s companies down the “stack” buying upwards.

Intel just did the same with VMware: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmware_intel.html