To say that modestly profitable utility storage maker 3PAR is a
company in the right place at the right time would be a massive
understatement.
The Dell versus Hewlett-Packard bidding war for the smallish Fremont, Calif.-based
enterprise storage company took two huge steps only minutes apart Aug.
27 when 3PAR, by far the hottest property in the storage business,
received an offer from Dell matching HP's $1.8 billion bid and accepted
it, apparently ending the four-day-long, high-stakes bidding war
between the two IT superpowers.
Then, as soon as the word went out about the apparent end to the
bidding process, HP lashed back with yet another offer: this time for a
cool $2 billion, which at $30 per share is about 11 percent higher than
Dell's most recent bid of $27.
Dell's match of HP's offer was written into its original Aug. 23 agreement with 3PAR. HP's offers are unsolicited.
The bidding has gone this way: HP made the original approach to 3PAR a
few weeks ago at unannounced terms. Dell countered on Aug. 16 with a
$1.15 billion bid; HP followed with $1.5 billion, Dell with $1.6
billion, HP with $1.8 billion, capped by Dell's "final" $1.8 billion
offer.
Then came the $2 billion bid. That's where the deal is at this minute, but the way it's going the news could change at any time.
This has been one quick back-and-forth bidding process. Last year's EMC
versus NetApp battle for Data Domain, which ended up with EMC paying
$2.3 billion for the deduplication storage expert, took several weeks.
Go here to see why 3PAR is such a hot asset.
Data Storage News & Reviews 
