HP Ups Bid for 3Par to $33 a Share

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Dell's(DELL) latest $32-a-share bid for 3Par(PAR) fell short Thursday after Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) raised its bid another 10% to $33.

In a press release Thursday, 3Par says HP has a "superior proposal" and that it has notified Dell that it intended to end its previous merger agreement. The latest flurry of bids comes just as Dell reached a three-day deadline to make a counter offer to HP's $30-a-share bid last week.

On Thursday, Dell upped its offer to $32 a share and negotiated an increase to its merger termination fee to $92 million, should 3Par break the deal.

With its $33 bid, HP has now doubled the value of the deal to $2.06 billion from the $1.1 billion Dell originally offered for 3Par earlier this summer.

The hotly-contested bidding war between the PC titans highlights the eagerness for HP and Dell to get access to the increasingly popular so-called cloud-based technology reshaping the network data storage market.

Shares of 3Par rose 4% to $33.50 in early trading Thursday suggesting that investors are expecting another round of offers between HP and Dell.

--Written by Scott Moritz in New York.

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