EMC ends bidding war with $2bn Data Domain deal

EMC has won control of storage company Data Domain after a bidding battle over rival suitor NetApp.

Data Domain is best known for its deduplication technology, which aggressively spots and removes redundancy in stored data. This is currently a hot topic, as corporate users struggle to keep up with rapidly increasing storage demands on rapidly stagnating capital expenditure budgets.

NetApp started the contest for Data Domain on 20 May, with an initial bid of $1.5bn. EMC countered with a bid of $1.8bn, with NetApp then raising its stake to $1.9bn. The contest has just finished, with NetApp bowing out yesterday after EMC made a bid of $2.1bn on Monday.

Data Domain had 2008 revenues of around $274m, making the acquisition one of the more generous of recent times. NetApp said in a statement that it had a disciplined approach to deal-making and that continuing in the bidding war would have diminished the value of the deal to its shareholders.

Original article: EMC wins Data Domain storage acquisition battle from ZDNet UK