Hewlett-Packard Co. said Wednesday it will acquire 3Com Corp. in a $2.7 billion deal that will enable the computer giant to expand its sales of networking products at a time when all the big technology vendors want to become one-stop shops for their corporate computing clients.

The acquisition thrusts HP, the Palo Alto firm that makes everything from ink-jet printers to corporate data centers, into direct competition with Cisco Systems, the San Jose company that has been the dominant vendor for computer networking.

"This is definitely a move from HP that competes with Cisco in that space," said analyst Vanessa Alvarez of Frost & Sullivan business consultants, adding that HP was stung earlier this year when Cisco introduced a server computer that invaded a market important to HP.

But beyond the battle between these two Bay Area giants, industry analysts see other recent deals - such as Oracle Corp.'s $7.4 billion bid for Sun Microsystems and Dell Inc.'s $3.9 billion offer for Perot Systems Corp. - as attempts by the big software and hardware firms to acquire whatever corporate computing goodies they don't currently sell.

"Everybody is getting into each other's territory," said David Willis, a vice president with Gartner Research.

"It's all about account control," said Silicon Valley tech analyst Rob Enderle. "If you build an entire ecosystem, you get more of the customer's total spending, and it's a good, high-margin business."

Week of deals

HP's networking gambit comes during a week of merger deals in Silicon Valley, including Google's $750 million offer for the mobile advertising company AdMob, Logitech's $405 million bid for the videoconferencing firm LifeSize Communications, and Electronic Arts' $300 million offer for the social-game outfit Playfish.

Assuming the HP bid receives regulatory and shareholder approval, the acquisition would end the 30-year run of 3Com, the once-fabled Silicon Valley startup that helped create the computer-networking industry and had its name on Candlestick Park from 1995 until 2005.

But during the late 1990s, 3Com became increasingly overmatched by Cisco in many networking markets, while it was largely unsuccessful with its forays into other areas, such as handheld computing. At one point, 3Com owned Palm Inc.

In 2003, 3Com moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Massachusetts and refocused its business on building the hardware and software that provides the internal connections for computer networks.

Around the same time, 3Com began working closely with the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, a relationship that helped it win a large share of the Chinese networking market - a fact mentioned repeatedly by HP executives in a conference call Wednesday with analysts.

Security concerns

In 2007, Huawei had sought to become the minority owner of 3Com in a $2.2 billion deal that would have given Boston investment firm Bain Capital a controlling interest in the networking company.

But that deal fell apart in 2008 after some U.S. authorities voiced security concerns about Huawei, which was founded by a former officer in the Chinese army.

In Wednesday's conference call, one analyst asked whether Chinese authorities might try to block the deal, as 3Com networking products are widely used by companies and government agencies there. An HP spokesperson suggested the company did not anticipate trouble.

HP announced the deal on the same day it reported preliminary quarterly earnings of 99 cents per share on $30.8 billion in revenue for the three months that ended in October, compared with 84 cents per share on $33.6 billion in sales in the same period a year ago.

HP has bought more than 30 companies since Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd took over in 2005, including last year's $13.2 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, a leading vendor of consulting and integration services for the corporate computer market.