HP Closes $2.35 Billion Acquisition of 3PAR

Hewlett-Packard reported Sept. 27 that it has closed the $2.35 billion acquisition deal announced Sept. 2-on Labor Day weekend-for  utility storage vendor 3PAR.

HP and Dell had competed in a furious 10-day bidding war that started Sept. 23, when HP tendered an unsolicited bid of $1.6 billion-one week after Dell had announced it was going to buy the Fremont, Calif.-based storage company for $1.15 billion.

The bidding, termed "crazy" by several analysts and investors contacted by eWEEK, spiraled up from there until Dell gave up the fight following its final offer of $2.2 billion, or $32 per share.

Dell's final offer to acquire 3PAR was not accepted by 3PAR's board of directors. Minutes after that news was announced, HP claimed victory in the bidding.

During the bidding war, 3PAR's stock shot up from $9.65 on Aug. 16 to more than $32 per share in early September. 3PAR has been holding steady; it was selling for $32.98 on Sept. 27.

With its final $33-per-share, all-cash bid, HP now owns the intellectual property of a small but mature storage company that specializes in handling data in massive amounts for large-scale IT systems.

3PAR was a hot commodity due to its clustered, utility-type architecture, which is tailor-made for cloud systems that deliver software as a service. Cloud storage systems are in high demand at this time.

In March 2010, 3PAR also began shipping its own brand of autonomic storage tiering, called Adaptive Optimization. The process actually prevents common storage bottlenecks from happening in the first place through a combination of business and operational intelligence, gained by a constant collection of data. 3PAR's version anticipates data blockages and solves them before they happen.

HP Executive Vice President for Storage Dave Donatelli, who joined HP in May 2009 following a long tenure at EMC, said about 3PAR, "We believe we have a good opportunity to grow revenue and grow at a very nice margin, which drives our business case. What I would add to it is that we have built up a great track record of doing transactions of this nature."