Came across this link on Data Center Knowledge to Forbes online –
In fiscal 2010 (ended January 31st), Dell spent $617 million for R&D, or 1.2% of sales [..] an R&D budget like that isn’t going to cut it.
[..]Hewlett Packard, the larger company, already has more going on. In the trailing 12 months, it spent $2.849 billion here, or 2.3% of sales.
[..] Assuming both want to stay relevant five years hence, 3Par looks like it will be a bargain for whichever firm wins this bidding war and likely there will be some incredibly long and tense meetings in the conference rooms of the firm that loses.
And another link from Data Center Knowledge to the Boston Globe, which says something I don’t really agree with –
EMC has also partnered with Dell to allow the computer company to resell high-end network storage products made by EMC. But that arrangement would be severely tested if Dell winds up buying 3Par, giving Dell its own high-end storage provider.
For that reason Kerravala said EMC will most likely fare better if HP ends up winning the 3Par bidding war.
“At least that will preserve EMC’s partnership with Dell,’’ he said.
In the short term it will of course preserve the EMC partnership, but the rift has been created by Dell, showing EMC it’s not willing to sit by and just refer sales along to the EMC direct sales team much longer. I’m sure EMC realizes it’s days are numbered as a tight partner with Dell(hence it’s partnership with Cisco UCS which I’m sure didn’t make Dell a happy camper).
I don’t see Dell going to HDS if they lose out on 3PAR, they probably wouldn’t look that hot if they went to HDS’s arms so soon after HP and Sun/Oracle ditched them.