The agreement calls for 3Com stockholders to receive $7.90 for each share of 3Com common stock that they hold at the closing of the merger, a 39 percent premium over Wednesday's closing price of $5.69. The acquisition has been approved by both companies' boards of directors and is expected to close in the first half of next year, according to HP (Palo Alto, Calif.).

HP said the acquisition of 3Com, a provider of networking switching, routing and security products, would bolster its next-generation data center strategy built on the convergence of servers, storage, networking, management, facilities and services.

HP said the acquisition would also significantly expand its presence in China through via 3Com's HC3 brand products. The deal will also add to HP a large R&D team in China, the company said.

"By acquiring 3Com, we are accelerating the execution of our converged infrastructure strategy and bringing disruptive change to the networking industry," said Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager of HP's Enterprise Servers and Networking division, in a statement.