Dell and HP’s w
ar over 3Par continued on Friday as the bidding hit the US $2 billion mark. HP raised its offer to $30 per share, a $3 increase over Dell’s bid. Dell made the first move in mid-August when it had offered just over $1 billion to buy 3Par. Currently 3Par has deemed HP’s bid “superior” and Dell was considering its response.
The unlikely battle of these PC behemoths over a small Fremont, CA data-storage company seems bizarre on the surface. The answer can be found in a high-growth technology business called cloud computing.
Cloud computing enables companies to store and access their information in off-site data centers that are managed by another company. 3Par makes scalable, modular storage platforms with thin provisioning, which can allocate just the amount of storage that an application needs. The process is cheaper and more efficient than current practices.
Businesses are quickly catching on to the trend. Corporate spending on cloud computing is expected to grow 27% each year for the next four years, reaching $55.5 billion in 2014, according to IDC. That’s up from just $16.5 billion last year.
