HP wins the war for 3PAR


2 Sep 2010

After Hewlett-Packard raised its bid to about $2.4bn, Dell has announced it will not raise its bid any higher, effectively ending its race for 3PAR.

Dell had recently countered HP’s $30 per share bid with a $32 per share offer.

HP’s newest offer is $33 per share for 3PAR, which offers a virtualised utility storage platform to drive down cloud computing infrastructure.

At this, Dell officially announced it would not raise its bid any higher.

“We took a measured approach throughout the process and have decided to end these discussions,” said Dave Johnson, senior vice-president of corporate strategy.

“We will continue to put the interests of our customers and shareholders at the forefront of all our decisions,” said Brian Gladden, chief financial officer. “Our focus is to create long-term value.”

Dell’s initial bid was at $18 per share for 3PAR and had hoped to add the company to its own existing storage product portfolio.

With this, 3PAR seems set to accept HP’s offer.

3PAR has also faced lawsuits in the midst of this from Crossroads Systems.

Crossroads claims 3PAR, along with D-Link, Rorke Data, Chelsio Communications, DataCore Software, iStor Networks and American Megatrends, infringes on its patent for a storage router that allows virtual local storage on remote storage devices.

3PAR has not yet commented on the lawsuit.