NetApp has raised itsbid pricefor Data Domain by more than 26% to
$1.9bn.
EMC tabled a £1.8bn counter offer for the data deduplication
specialist yesterday and said its submission was not subject to
financing or due diligence contingency.
The move follows NetApp's proposed $1.5bn acquisition of Data
Domain last month. Senior management at NetApp appear to have an
appetite to enter a bidding war by offering $30 per share in a cash
and stock transaction.
"The complementary nature of the Data Domain and NetApp product
lines will result in higher aggregate growth compared to the
redundancies that would result with the EMC product line," said Dan
Warmenhoven, NetApp CEO.
In short, EMC's Clariion disc library, its acquisition of Avamar
and OEM partnership with Quantum means it already has products that
compete with Data Domain.
Warmenhoven said, "We are committed to this partnership now as
we were when we first announced our intent to acquire Data
Domain."
Industry commentators said Data Domain was a pioneer of
deduplication and as such has more mature and broader portfolio but
the feeling was that whichever vendor loses the bidding war would
face embarrassment.
"Both EMC and NetApp are admitting a huge weakness, and that
their deduplication technologies are not the market leaders," said
one storage specialist.
A version of this story orginally appeared onMicroScope.co.uk.