There have been a few who have been suggesting that 3Par was next on the acquisition trail. They have some good technology and certainly a more modern architecture (love those chunklets and what you can do with them).

What is also interesting is that Dell only recently went out and purchased another storage player, Ocarina. I wrote about Ocarina last year when we visited them as part of TechFieldDay. What does Ocarina do, compression for storage. Now 3Par does great thin storage but don't do compression. One wonders what of the Ocarina technologies Dell might be planning on integrating into their new purchase.

Certainly interesting times in the storage industry. The stack wars are heating up maybe?

Rodos