9/10/2007 -- Don't look now, but Hewlett-Packard Co.'s ProCurve division might be picking up some enterprise switching ground against rival -- and enterprise switching king -- Cisco Systems Inc.

That's according to market watcher Infonetics Research, which found in its most recent switching study ("User Plans for Ethernet Switches") that although customers rate Cisco highest overall when ranking manufacturers on a number of criteria (including technology, roadmap, security, management, and service and support), HP's ProCurve division outscored Cisco in customer ratings on price-to-performance. Meanwhile, Infonetics says, the gap between Cisco and HP on the service and support front is also closing.

"Cisco continues to dominate the router and switch markets, but on the switching side, ProCurve buyer perceptions have improved across the board compared to last year, which explains why they're now a solid second on respondents' vendor short list," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise voice and data at Infonetics Research, in a statement.

Interestingly, Dell Computer Corp. topped out as the No. 3 vendor overall, ahead of stalwarts like Nortel Networks and 3Com Corp. Customers gave Dell high marks for financial stability, pricing, and service and support, according to Infonetics.

Elsewhere, Cisco is also tops in enterprise routing, according to Machowinski and Infonetics.

"Juniper comes close, but doesn't yet score higher than Cisco in any of the router criteria we pose in the study, which is key to moving up on respondents' short lists," Machowinski said. "The companies we interviewed are medium and large size companies, and run large networks, so understandably they're not keen on swapping out vendors. If they do, there must be a very compelling reason." --Stephen Swoyer