HP Acquires 3Par with $2.4 B Bid
Author: John Duckgeischel
on September 2, 2010 - 10:28 AM
In dramatic fashion, HP has
surpassed Dell’s last ditch effort, by securing 3Par Inc. with a $33 per share
bid. Today Dell has served notice that
it will submit no further bids, choosing instead to let HP go forward with its plans to
acquire the company for $2.4 billion.
The winning HP was more than double the price of Dell’s initial offer
and more than three times of the stock price within the last month. "We thought the price Dell originally
offered was already pretty rich," Shaw Wu, a veteran tech analyst with
Kaufman Brothers investment firm, said in an interview earlier this week. He
added that "it remains to be seen" whether the purchase of 3Par will
pay off.
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Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Manufacturing Release Launched
Author: John Duckgeischel
on September 2, 2010 - 7:20 AM
As iPhones, Android Phones and BlackBerry’s sell
by the millions, Microsoft reached a major milestone of its own this week for its
forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Smartphone platform. The
company plans for a multiple Window Phone
7 smartphones to be available in time for the coming 2010 Christmas shopping
season. The latest mobile operating
system from Microsoft features aggregated Web content and apps that are
organized into category specific Hubs that include “Games” or “Office”. “Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly
tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released,” Terry Myerson, corporate
vice president of Windows Phone Engineering, blogged on Sept 1st. “We had
nearly 10,000 devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours
of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test
passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes.”
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3Par Bidding War Continues
Author: John Duckgeischel
on September 1, 2010 - 12:19 PM
It all
started with Dell’s initial $1.15 billion bid for 3Par Inc. a few weeks ago,
then HP countered with a higher bid that started the bidding war between both
companies. HP currently has the
highest bid with a $2 billion dollar
offer for 3Par, leaving Dell wondering about its next move in this strategic
chess match. “We're assessing what our
next step will be," Dell spokesman David Frink stated. As the cloud computing market heats up, both
Dell and HP see 3Par’s storage technology as a great compliment to their
respective product lines. The question
of how much HP or Dell is willing to pay for 3Par, Inc. may be answered in the
near future. "If HP is able to
rapidly ramp up 3Par's sales, it can certainly justify the price they're offering
to pay for it," says Stan Zaffos, research vice president at Gartner.
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SocialDesk Is Google’s 5th Acquisition In August
Author: John Duckgeischel
on August 31, 2010 - 12:43 PM
As August
draws to a close, Google made its 5th acquisition of the month with its
purchase of the Canadian social gaming company SocialDeck. "We started this company with the goal
of connecting friends through social games on all kinds of exciting new mobile
devices," SocialDeck wrote on the company’s web site. "We've been
amazed and humbled by all of the stories and experiences our customers (you!)
have shared with us." Recently
Google acquired other social gaming companies such as Jambool and Slide, and
has vested $200 million in Zynga which popular on Facebook. A week ago Google bought Angstro which makes
social-media applications, and it also recently purchased iLike, the
e-commercial visual search company.
Google has not disclosed its plans for the SocialDeck, however the
social focused acquisitions has fueled much speculation about Google’s plans to
expand in the social arena.
SocialDeck is known for a number of games that
include Pet Hero Puzzle, Shake & Spell, Shake & Spell 3D, and Color
Connect. The company distributed the
games through iTunes and made Shake & Spell available through Facebook and
Blackberry. The company offered both
free and 99 cent versions of their applications. The company also developed Spark, a
social-gaming platform that works on Facebook, iPhone and Blackberry to connect
players across social games.
Related
Links:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368513,00.asp
http://www.develop-online.net/news/35739/SocialDeck-buyout-next-in-Google-spending-spree
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article.php/3901371/Google-Continues-Social-Buying-Spree-With-SocialDeck.htm
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Google’s YouTube in Talks with Major Movie Studios
Author: John Duckgeischel
on August 30, 2010 - 12:15 PM
Your favorite
movie may be available at home on YouTube sooner than you think. Apparently talks are currently underway
between major motion picture studios and Google regarding making a catalog of Hollywood
favorite films available on a pay-per-view basis by the end of 2010 according
to the Financial Times. The on-demand streaming service will
provide the movies for $5 per viewing based on reports from those are familiar
with Google’s plans. When a YouTube representative was asked about possible
developments the response was that, “We have nothing to announce at this time."
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HP Offers $2 Billion for 3Par to Surpass Dell
Author: John Duckgeischel
on August 27, 2010 - 8:31 AM
The 3Par
acquisition saga continues as HP raised its bid to $2 billion or $30 per share. The company was initially sought by Dell for
$1.13 billion when it made its first offer on August 16th. The latest $2 billion offer is HP’s second
bid and eclipses Dell’s second bid of $1.6 billion, which was also made this
week. 3Par has become a much sought
after prize as both companies try to bolster their storage portfolios as they
compete in the growing cloud computing marketplace. 3Par’s thin client approach makes it easier
and less expensive to store information than the traditional storage approach. Storage products have become an essential
piece of the puzzle as the data-center equipment market continues to expand.
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Dell Claims 3Par OK’s New $1.6 Billion Bid
Author: John Duckgeischel
on August 26, 2010 - 11:07 AM
Dell Inc.
announced today that 3Par Inc. has agreed to accept its $1.6 billion second
offer for the data storage company.
3Par has been in the news multiple times recently as Dell initially Dell
offered $1.15 billion and then HP came into the picture with an unsolicited $1.6 billion cash bid. Details of the accepted offer have not been
disclosed so far. 3Par became an
attractive target with its thin provisioning storage technology which can
provide the required storage on demand.
The company’s “thin” technology architecture delivers storage capacity
more efficiently that a traditional or “fat” provisioning approach.
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Novell Launches Innovative Cloud Security Service
Author: John Duckgeischel
on August 25, 2010 - 11:38 AM
Novell’s
newly announced Cloud Security Service is open for business with general
availability in the U.S marketplace. As Novell rolled out the new service product,
it became one of the first companies to provide a multi-tenant system that is
cloud-focused which has been designed from the ground up. Dipo Chachravarty, general manager for Novell
cloud security described the Novell Cloud Security Service as a framework that provides for just in time
provisioning of access management for private and public and cloud computing environments. Customers of the new service can control the
provisioning, authentication and authorization of users on local or hosted
cloud computing systems. The service
allows IT managers to provision identity management tokens in real time. The scalability of the service makes it possible
for IT managers to have scalability based on demand requirements as a large
volume of users access files on in-house or remote cloud computing
environments. To efficiently manage application
workloads the new service utilizes RESTful API’s which can be integrated with
various applications.
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Speculation Grows That Apple Is Pursuing Alternatives to AT&T
Author: John Duckgeischel
on August 24, 2010 - 8:57 AM
As Android
sales continue to grow the pressure on Apple to find one or more alternative
carriers to AT&T builds. Since
AT&T filled a SEC10-Q which noted that they would not have an exclusive
hold on certain handsets the speculation regarding iPhone expanding its
horizons has grown. Kaufman Bro.'s
analyst Shaw Wu has stated his belief that Apple wants to expand through other
U.S. Wireless network operator(s). "From
our checks with industry and supply chain sources and a recent SEC 10-Q filing
by AT&T mentioning that exclusivity with 'a number of attractive handsets'
could end, we have conviction that the iPhone could likely finally be at
another carrier besides AT&T here in the U.S. in 2011 and potentially at
Verizon in 2011 or 2012... We believe the argument for AAPL to pursue Verizon
sooner than later is to address the growing presence of Android. What better
way to do that than where Android has seen the majority of its success?" Recent speculation by industry analysts has included not only Verizon, but also possibly T-Mobile or Sprint.
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HP Tops Dell’s Bid For 3PAR with $1.6 Billion Offer
Author: John Duckgeischel
on August 23, 2010 - 8:26 AM
On Wall
Street share prices of 3PAR rose to over $24 per share on news that
Hewlett-Packard’s $1.6 billion offer to buy 3PAR was one third higher than a
prior $1.1 billion bid by Dell Inc. Today’s price levels are the highest seen on
record since the company’s initial offering in 2007. 3PAR known for its storage
products which are often used in data centers has become especially attractive
as a target as the cloud computer business segment continues to expand. The shares of other data storage companies
have gone up recently based on the 3PAR acquisition news including Commvault
Systems up 6.6%, Compellent Technologies, Inc. up 8.2% and Isilon Systems with
a gain of 7.5%.
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