Dell Buys 3Par for $1.15 Billion

When Dell (DELL) purchased Perot Systems back in September of 2009, founder Michael Dell said the acquisition was the first of many such deals. And, true to his word, it was. By mid-2010 Dell had acquired three more companies–KACE Networks, Exanet and Ocarina Networks. Monday it announced the purchase of a fourth–3Par.

Early this morning, Dell said it will pay about $1.15 billion cash for the data-storage company–an 86.5 percent premium over 3Par’s Friday closing share price of $9.65. For Dell, which has been looking to diversify away from its core PC-manufacturing business, adding 3Par to its portfolio is one more way to do so, solidifying its position in the storage and services markets. A pure-play PC and server maker no longer, the company is fast transforming into a full-fledged consulting and services concern to boot, something it must do if it’s to compete with enterprise-technology rivals like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and IBM (IBM). Said UBS analyst Maynard Um, “The 3Par deal helps bolster Dell’s competitiveness and profitability in the mid & high-end of the Fibre Channel SAN segment and strengthens its position for cloud & virtualized environments (key long term areas of focus). We also see opportunity for Dell to drive solid growth of 3Par systems (similar to success achieved with EqualLogic) as only 20% of 3Par sales are from outside the US & 80% of sales come from repeat customers, which provides significant growth opportunities by leveraging Dell’s scale, distribution and global reach.”