HP tops Dell's bid for data storage firm 3Par

Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world's No1 personal computer maker today made a $1.6-billion bid for 3Par, just a week after Dell offered to acquire the company for $1.13 billion, reflecting the emerging strategic importance of data storage companies to computer companies.

California-based HP today announced that it has offered to buy 3PAR for $24 per share in cash, or an enterprise value of $1.6 billion. It said that the proposed transaction represents a 33.3 per cent premium above the price proposed by Dell.

Texas-based Dell had last week proposed to acquire all of the outstanding common stock of 3PAR for $18 per share in cash, or about $1.13 billion. (See: Dell to acquire data-storage company 3Par for $1.13 billion) 

Both computer makers are bidding for a $194-million turnover company, where seven of the world's top 10 revenue-generating managed service providers, including Savvis, Verizon Business, and Terremark use 3PAR's Utility Storage platform.

Fremont, California-based 3PAR is a global provider of utility storage, a category of highly virtualised, dynamically tiered, multi-tenant storage arrays built for public and private cloud computing.

Its virtualised storage platform is built to be agile and efficient so as to eliminate the limitations of traditional storage arrays for utility infrastructures.