Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard have called it quits and are now competitors, though the gloves are still on. This is no surprise to the Canadian mid-market, which has been warming to HP’s ProCurve.

Cisco “recently notified HP that we will not renew its System Integrator contract when it expires on April 30, 2010, resulting in HP no longer being a Cisco Certified Channel or Global Service Alliance partner,” said Cisco Channel Chief Keith Goodwin in a blog and video post.

The war will heat up this spring: Cisco Partner Summit 2010 and the Hewlett-Packard Americas Partner Conference are set for the same week in April.

“Over the last few years our relationship with HP has evolved from a partner to companies with different and conflicting visions of how to deliver value to customers,” said Goodwin.

This is should come as no surprise to Cisco watchers.  Last summer  Cisco opened up price war with HP, and by autumn HP was cozying up to partners that successfully sold against Cisco. Not surprisingly, that didn’t sit well with Cisco.

“Despite this shift in industry dynamics, HP had remained a Cisco Certified Channel Partner,” said Goodwin. “Being a Cisco Certified Channel Partner has numerous benefits including access to proprietary information (such as product roadmaps) and partner profitability initiatives. Given the evolution of our relationship it simply no longer makes sense to provide these benefits to HP.”

HP’s recent 3Com buyout was seen by many as a counter move to Cisco, but Goodwin claims that Cisco “will continue to work with HP wherever our customers expect it and where it makes sense for our business.”

And Cisco is holding out an olive branch to HP:

“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” said Goodwin. “We will also honour Cisco customer service contracts with HP for their duration.”