EMC offers $1.8b for Data Domain

Storage firm EMC has entered the battle for Data Domain, upping NetApp’s offer for the deduplication vendor by 20%.
 
EMC yesterday announced a $30 per share all-cash bid for Data Domain, valuing the company at $1.8 billion.
 
NetApp offered $1.5 billion in cash and stock on May 20.
 
EMC said its bid was not subject to due diligence and would be faster to close.
 
EMC chairman and CEO Joe Tucci said the acquisition would broaden EMC’s storage portfolio and accelerate its growth rates.
 
“The combination of EMC and Data Domain technologies will strengthen EMC’s leadership in the fast-growing and very important next-generation disk-based backup and archive market, and will also result in a business larger than a billion dollars for EMC in 2010,” he said.
 
He said in a letter to Data Domain CEO Frank Slootman that its deduplication technologies and EMC’s were “generally distinct”.
 
Deduplication is the practice of storing just new files at each backup, speeding backups and reducing the volumes of data being transferred and stored.
 
Net App’s stock lifted 6.1% on NASDAQ and then fell 1.45% to $20.39 in after-hours trading. NYSE-listed EMC fell 1.45% to $12.24 after rising 5.7% during the day.