Living in the shadow of networking titan Cisco Systems, this is what passes for a big victory for Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve networking division. It recently inched into the No. 2 slot in Ethernet switching revenue and the number of ports shipped to businesses--though it still holds less than 4% of the market to Cisco's 70%.

To compete, HP's ProCurve last week rolled out a strategy to build adaptable networks. The goal: to make them simpler, increase productivity, and improve security.

The company's Adaptive Networks strategy hinges on application-aware networking devices and programs that can manage traffic flow. For instance, ProCurve's Identity Driven Manager uses standard protocols to auto-discover users and devices on the network and give administrators control over their experiences with apps.

"A complicated application environment like we have today requires the network to understand applications it sees and the ability for management utilities to act in a business manner, not in a device manner," says John McHugh, ProCurve's general manager and VP.

There are opportunities to look at security holistically, McHugh says. But many customers still see the network infrastructure and applications as distant from each other, so access controls like Cisco's NAC or Microsoft's NAP may take awhile, he says.

ProCurve has a long way to go to catch Cisco in the $15 billion-a-year switch market. As ProCurve edges toward the No. 2 spot in enterprise networking, McHugh admits, it's not easy: "I don't get a swell of customers or awareness that I wouldn't have had otherwise."

Customers may never give ProCurve a free ride, but with this latest push, HP could be on the right track.