San Francisco  - Hewlett Packard has reached a deal to buy network equipment-maker 3Com in a deal worth 2.7 billion dollars, the companies announced Wednesday.

The deal will give HP an important foothold in the market for networking equipment and comes as other technology giants like Cisco and Oracle broaden their product ranges through acquisitions to diversify their revenue streams and offer corporate customers a complete set of technology solutions.

3Com is a pioneer of sophisticated networking equipment that was overtaken by Cisco in the 1990s and was then hard hit by the dot-com bust of 2000. It still has an especially strong presence in China and reported almost 300 million dollars in revenue in the most recent quarter.

HP said the 3Com products will be folded into HP's own networking equipment business and that the deal was expected to close in the first half of 2010. (dpa)