I awoke early this morning to an email at the top of my inbox from one of my analyst buddies, “Call when you can to discuss the Dell/3Par deal…” …OK…Wait…what?! I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was reading it right, gulped the rest of my coffee and gave him a ring.
So, yeah…Dell has agreed to acquire 3Par for ballpark of $1.15billion…Billion with a “B”. Seems high to me what what do I know about company valuations. Maybe someone else was bidding on them too..
This is interesting for a number of reasons not the least of which is the further strain it puts on Dell’s already-rocky (despite what they say in the press) relationship with EMC. First, Dell buys EqualLogic for $1.6billion, and in doing so adds a major competitor to EMC to their product offering…Both parties shrug it off to the media but if you’re a fan of logic (and who isn’t!) that was a HUGE gut-punch to EMC from essentially their largest partner. Now they add a large-scale, high-end virtualized storage line and the hand-holding and nervous smiles they display when seen in public together don’t hold much water. This relationship is on the rocks…It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.
Anyway….As a long-time EqualLogic and Dell Partner we welcome the opportunity to offer 3Par to our customers and think this is a great move by Dell.
Please give us a shout if you’d like to discuss further and/or get technical/pricing info on 3Par.
