Reports are that HP is being ejected from the elite circle of Cisco's confidantes, who end up receiving confidential Cisco product roadmap details, as the rivalry and competition between the two gets more fierce and bitter.

There was once a time when HP, together with its servers and storage and ProCurve networking operation, was an amazing partner to Cisco, and this led to giving Netzilla an entry into HP accounts for its routers.

But now, HP has ramped up the ProCurve into a more serious networking play and Cisco got more involved with servers and storage.

Cisco has refused to renew HP's System Integration contract, which means that HP will no longer be a certified Channel and Global Alliance partner.

"HP [and Cisco have] evolved from [partners] to companies with different and conflicting visions of how to deliver value to customers. We have already reached out to HP to begin the discussion around a new agreement that ensures business continuity for existing customers and better reflects the current state of our relationship. We will also honor Cisco customer service contracts with HP for their duration", said Keith Goodwin, Cisco's Worldwide Partner Organization SVP.