Hewlett-Packard tabled a new 2 billion dollar bid for electronic storage company 3Par on Friday, dpa reported.
The 30-dollar-per-share bid came just hours after Dell had offerred 27 dollars a share for the company, which specializes in cloud computing servers that are becoming increasingly crucial for corporate data centers.
Dell's latest bid had been accepted by the 3Par board, and had been expected to terminate a bidding war that erupted with HP this week. Dell's deal with 3Par also gave Dell the option to match any subsequent bids from other companies and provided for a 72-million- dollar break-up fee should 3Par decide to sell itself to another firm. Dell initially bid 18 dollars per share for 3Par on August 16.
Both Dell and HP view 3Par as a strategic asset that can help them win corporate customers who increasingly need to store and deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. 3Par has a virtual monopoly at the top of the high-end storage market, and though it has consistently lost money since going public in 2007, stronger sales teams and integration into a wider product range could transform it into a big money maker.
Analysts believe that HP has an edge in the bidding wars, with annual revenues of some 115 billion dollars, compared to Dell's 53 billion dollars, allowing it to pay a higher price than its rival.