EMC Corporation has finally overcome rival NetApp and succeeded with its bid to buy data deduplication leader Data Domain at a price of USD $2.1 billion.
The acceptance of the final offer comes after a six-week bidding war and will raise questions about whether EMC overpaid for Data Domain – and what NetApp will do now.
EMC’s final offer of USD $33.50 per share for Data Domain is a lofty figure compared to the $18 its stock was trading for before NetApp’s first bid May 20.
NetApp went on to offer of USD $25 per share before increasing that to USD $30 after EMC joined the fray.
While EMC could be accused of overpaying, deduplication is viewed as a growing segment of the storage market and Data Domain offers some very good technology.
For NetApp there do appear to be other potential acquisition targets to bring it into the data deduplication/backup space, including CommVault, FalconStor, Quantum and Sepaton.
The challenge facing EMC now is to decide how to bring Data Domain to market.
With businesses storing 50 per cent more data each year, according to some market research estimates, EMC is betting the acquisition will pay off.
Joe Tucci, EMC chairman, president and CEO, said: "This is a compelling acquisition from both a strategic and financial standpoint.
"We look forward to bringing Data Domain together with EMC to form a powerful force in next-generation disk-based backup and archive."
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