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3PAR

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3PAR
IndustryInformation storage (hardware and software)
Founded1999
FounderJeffrey Price
Ashok Singhal
Robert Rogers
Headquarters
Fremont, CA
,
USA
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
David C. Scott
(President), (CEO) & (Director)
ProductsInServ, InForm, Thin Provisioning, Adaptive Optimization, Dynamic Optimization, Virtual Domains, Virtual Copy, Full Copy, Remote Copy, Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere (including VAAI), Recovery Manager for Oracle, Recovery Manager for MS SQL Server, Recovery Manager for MS Exchange, System Tuner, System Reporter, Multipath I/O for IBM AIX, Multipath I/O for MS Windows, Access Guard
RevenueUS$ 194.28 million (FY10)
US$ -3.33 million (FY10)
US$ -3.18 million (FY10)
Total assetsUS$ 212.30 million (FY10)
Number of employees
657 (FY10)
Website3PAR.com

3PAR Inc. (NYSE: PAR) is an American manufacturer of systems and software for data storage and information management. It is headquartered in Fremont, California, USA. 3PAR produces a range of enterprise storage products, including hardware disk arrays and storage management software. Its company slogan is "Resilient Infrastructure Agility For Less." In April 2010, the company was recognized by Forbes magazine as the fourth fastest growing technology company in its Tech25 list[1].

History

3PAR was founded in 1999. The founders included Jeffrey Price and Ashok Singhal, the P and A in the company's name. The R stands for a third partner, Robert Rogers, who left the company in 2001. David Scott became President and CEO in January 2001. The company’s stated mission was "to make storage solutions simple and efficient".

3PAR first shipped the InServ storage server in September 2002. 3PAR’s primary competitors in the enterprise storage market are EMC Corporation, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. 3PAR has been called a "pioneer and champion" [2][3] for thin provisioning[4], a mechanism to improve the utilization efficiency of storage capacity deployment. 3PAR first announced this capability in June 2002 and shipped it to customers in 2003.

In September 2007 3PAR opened a second Research and Development office in Belfast, Northern Ireland[5]. The company completed an initial public offering in November 2007[6] and was initially listed on the NYSE arca. In the same month, 3PAR introduced Virtual Domains[7], which allow for secure application data isolation on a consolidated multi-tenant storage platform. In December 2008, 3PAR moved to the NYSE Big Board. One year later, the 3PAR opened an Indian subsidiary in Bangalore focused on providing logistical and administrative support for its Global Services and Support operations. In March 2010, the company introduced 3PAR Adaptive Optimization, the industry's first implementation of Autonomic Storage Tiering for cost optimization in high end storage systems, targeted at enterprises and service providers.

3PAR supplies its customers through a direct sales force in the US, the UK, Germany and Canada. It also supplies its InServ platform through storage systems integrators and channel partners in other countries around the world including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, India, Australia, France, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway and South Africa.

Takeover Bids

On August 16, 2010, Dell announced that it would acquire 3PAR in a transaction valued at approximately $1.15 billion, net of 3PAR’s cash.[8]

Following that, on August 23, 2010, HP announced that it had offered $1.5 billion (33% higher than Dell's offer) to acquire 3PAR in a letter sent to 3PAR's president and CEO.[9]

On August 26, 2010, 3PAR said that it had accepted Dell's revised offer for a price of $24.30 per share, or approximately $1.6 billion, net of 3PAR's cash.[10]

Then on August 27, both parties re-offered their bids, with Dell offering $27 a share to buy 3PAR, and HP offering $30 only 90 minutes later, valuing the company at more than $2 billion.[11]

On September 2, 2010, Dell increased its offer to $32 per share but declined to revise its bid after HP upped its bid to $2.4 billion or $33 per share shortly thereafter.[12] [13] Dell received a $72 million break-up fee from 3PAR for the termination of the initial merger agreement.

On September 27, 2010, HP completed the acquisition for $2.35 billion.

Products

3PAR led the development of what has been called a new category of disk arrays, "Utility Storage"[14], that are designed to be the storage foundation for utility computing architectures. Utility computing architectures provide a multi-tenant platform on which service providers can deliver both virtualized and scalable enterprise IT as a utility service. The emergence of Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and social networking business models deployed via the internet and cloud computing are examples of this trend. Enterprises and government organizations that are turning their IT organizations into internal service bureaus by building shared virtualized infrastructures for flexible workload consolidation are another.

3PAR’s flagship SAN product, the InServ storage server, is a component of the enterprise storage in many data centers[15]. It includes the models T400 and T800 which compete with high end monolithic storage arrays like the EMC DMX and HDS USP, and the models F200 and F400 which compete with modular storage arrays like the EMC CX and HP EVA. The same InForm operating system software suite runs across both the F- and T-class platforms.

References

  1. ^ Forbes, America's Fastest Growing Tech Companies
  2. ^ Infoworld, PG&E adds thin provisioning to energy-saving incentive program
  3. ^ Reuters, 3PAR Customers Eligible for PG&E Incentives
  4. ^ Byte and Switch, 3PAR Debut's 'thin provisioning'
  5. ^ Economy Minister Nigel Dodds announces arrival of 3PAR to Northern Ireland
  6. ^ East Bay Times, 3PAR's stock soars in debut
  7. ^ CBR, 3PAR Virtualizes the Box Itself
  8. ^ http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/secure/2010-08-16-ir-release.aspx
  9. ^ http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100823a.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news
  10. ^ http://www.3par.com/news_events/20100826.html 3PAR Accepts Increased Offer To Be Acquired By Dell
  11. ^ HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
  12. ^ "HP Increases Offer for 3Par to $33, Trumping Dell's New $32 Bid." Bloomberg BusinessWeek, September 2, 2010
  13. ^ Dell press release
  14. ^ Byte and Switch, 3PAR Tees Off
  15. ^ Business Week, Hardware Pioneers: The Next Generation
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