Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday that it had reached an agreement to acquire 3Com, a provider of computer network equipment, for $2.7 billion in a deal that H.P. plans as a springboard for an assault on the market leader in networking, Cisco Systems. In an interview, Ann M. Livermore, an executive vice president of H.P., described computer networking as a $40 billion-a-year market with high profi
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