SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) on Wednesday announced that it has agreed to buy 3Com Corp., a leading provider of networking solutions, for about 2.7 billion U.S. dollars.

The world's largest personal computer vendor said it will pay 7.90 dollars a share in cash for 3Com in a deal that analysts believe will intensify HP's competition with Cisco Systems Inc., the world's biggest networking equipment maker.

"Companies are looking for ways to break free from the business limitations imposed by a networking paradigm that has been dominated by a single vendor," Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager of HP's enterprise servers and networking, said in a statement.

By acquiring 3Com, HP is bringing "disruptive change to the networking industry," he added.

HP also noted that the acquisition will underscore the company's next-generation data center strategy "built on the convergence of servers, storage, networking, management, facilities and services."

HP and 3Com boards have both approved the deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2010.