Competition in the Ethernet switch market has been heating up over the past few weeks. While Cisco seems as firmly lodged as ever at the top of most network managers’ list of procurement candidates, competition for the number-two spot in the European market is growing in intensity.

Both HP’s ProCurve division and 3Com f are looking to establish themselves as the default alternative to Cisco. 3Com’s prospects in this regard may have brightened last week when it was acquired by private equity company Bain Capital Partners for $2.2bn in a deal that gives fast-growing Chinese network equipment vendor Huawei also have a significant interest in the firm.

For network managers, this renewed determination from ProCurve and 3Com to give Cisco a run for its money should yield benefits in terms of technology choice and keener pricing.

Hungrily eying Cisco’s two-thirds market share, ProCurve last month released a range of high-availability core switches. With the launch of its 8200 range, ProCurve said it has built up a complete portfolio of Ethernet switches that covers the network edge, the access layer and the core.

ProCurve vice president and general manager, John McHugh, said targeting the market for core network switches was a priority because deployments generated business in other areas. “If we get chosen for network core hardware, we find we get twice the revenue due to the network edge hardware that is rolled out on the back of the contract,” he said.

Like all ProCurve’s network hardware, the first 8200 switch ­ the 8212zl ­ comes with a lifetime warranty, or what McHugh called, “a next-day business, ‘spare-in-the-air’ warranty”. He added that the guarantee should prove to be a significant differentiator in ProCurve’s battle for market share.

According to research firm Dell’Oro Group, ProCurve’s share of the Europe, Middle East and Africa switch market stood at 16 per cent for the second quarter of this year, compared with Cisco’s 49 per cent. McHugh said ProCurve’s aim is to increase this share to 25 per cent within the next 18 months.

Despite its commanding lead, Cisco is not resting on its laurels and recently announced a push on another hotly contested market for Ethernet hardware, the enterprise branch office, with the launch of its Cisco Empowered Branch range.

3Com, meanwhile, hopes its acquisition by Bain will give it the financial muscle it needs to mount a concerted challenge to Cisco’s market lead.

In a recent interview, 3Com vice president and European general manager Mike Ansley said his firm’s primary focus is to become the second-choice vendor in the Europe, Middle East and Africa market. “There’s been no credible second competitor. It’s not Cisco’s fault that IT managers haven’t had a choice,” he said.

However, Gartner analyst Mark Fabbi thinks 3Com still has its work cut out. “Are we going to see huge growth in North America and Europe? Unlikely ­ I think the big opportunity is in the developing countries and that’s where the Huawei support comes in,” he said.