The bidding war between Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) for virtualized storage vendor 3Par continued on Thursday, with Dell increasing its bid to US$24.30 per share, or about US$1.6 billion.
The offer has been accepted by 3PAR, according to Dell. It tops a US$24 per share offer made by HP earlier this week.
Dell had originally inked a deal to buy 3PAR for US$18 per share, or roughly US$1.15 billion, but the agreement had a provision for matching competitive offers, according to a statement.
Dell expects the deal to close before the end of this year.
3PAR is known for its thin provisioning capabilities, which supply storage resources on demand. The approach is said to be more efficient than traditional “fat provisioning,” a process that dedicates an excess amount of storage to an application in anticipation of future needs.
HP could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.