Hewlett-Packard and Dell in heated battle for 3Par acquisition

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Currently, PC heavyweights Hewlett-Packard and Dell are locked in a struggle to acquire 3Par, a company that offers data-storage machines designed for cloud computing services.

HP recently made an offer of $1.5 billion for the company, while Dell offered close to $400 million less. However, many experts close to the negotiations believe Dell will significantly increase its offer for the company.

The move for HP will be a bright spot following the negative attention it received after CEO Mark Hurd was ousted last week. Hurd's firing came as a result of inaccurate expense reports. Hurd had engineered nearly $20 billion in acquisitions during his five-year tenure as HP's CEO.

The heated battle to acquire 3Par signals the importance of cloud computing in today's technology world. A recent report from CloudTweaks expects 20 percent of all companies to embrace the cloud during the next four years. PC heavyweights such as HP and Dell are aware of this trend and are apparently doing all they can to prepare for this continued trend.