SEATTLE — Hewlett-Packard Co. said Thursday that it is raising its offer for data-storage maker 3Par Inc. to about $1.69 billion, topping a bid from rival Dell Inc. just hours after it was made public.
HP’s new offer is for $27 per share in cash. Earlier, Dell said 3Par had accepted its second offer of $24.30 per share in cash, or $1.52 billion.
Dell made its first offer, $18 per share, for 3Par on Aug. 16.
HP kicked off the bidding contest with its counteroffer Monday.
The back-and-forth bidding over previously obscure 3Par underscores how serious Dell and HP, among the world’s largest PC makers, are about finding more-profitable businesses rather than selling computers.
The companies that made personal computers affordable and ubiquitous must now draw new buyers by selling more- sophisticated PCs at ever-lower prices. The cost of parts, meanwhile, has increased, putting even more of a squeeze on profits.
HP and Dell see 3Par as a way to build up their “cloud computing” businesses, which hold the promise of richer profits because many companies aren’t buying their own computer servers for certain tasks anymore. Instead, they’re paying to have software they would have stored on those machines delivered to them over the Internet.
Dell, HP and others are riding this trend by offering those kinds of cloud-computing services directly on a subscription basis, along with the equipment and software for customers to build their own cloud systems.
