By Rodney Brown

3Com Corp., the company that gave birth to Ethernet, has agreed to be acquired by Hewlett Packard Co. for a total of approximately $2.7 billion in cash, in a deal that already has approval from the boards of both companies.

Buying Marlborough-based 3Com gives HP a well-developed roster of Ethernet switching products, a much stronger corporate presence in China, and a leap into network security products through 3Com’s subsidiary, TippingPoint, which the company acquired for $400 million in 2005.

HP also gets access to 3Com’s large research and development team in China, which came about from 3Com’s partnership with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Officials at Calif.-based HP say that the purchase will allow it to boost its next-generation data center strategy built on the convergence of servers, storage, networking, management, facilities and services.

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, which is expected to happen in the first half of calendar 2010.

3Com, which has 5,800 employees globally, posted revenue of $290.5 million and $7.5 million in net profit in the third quarter, a year-over-year drop of 15 percent and 91 percent respectively. It held $200 million in long-term debt, including $46 million due this fiscal year and another $46 million due in its 2011 fiscal year. The company has a market cap of $2.23 billion.

Click here to watch HP’s webcast announcing the deal.