Well, the 3Par bidding war saga looks to be coming to an end as HP's final $33 offer has been accepted and Dell has pulled out of the race.

It makes you wonder about the "efficient market" theory, doesn't it? I mean, here is a stock that was trading around $10 and basically flatlined for about a year, only to suddenly increase by more than 300% in a period of three weeks. The market certainly wasn't efficient at pricing 3Par shares.

Here are the latest stats on 3Par at the current near-$33 level:

Market Cap: $2B

Forward P/E: 122

Revenue (TTM) $203M

Price/Sales (TTM): 9.84

Enterprise value/EBITDA: 294

Hmmm. Not sure I'd call that a bargain.

Onto the rest of the news:

• The Atlantic coast of the U.S. is prepping for Hurricane Earl (New York Times).
• Andy Roddick is out at the U.S. Open (Wall Street Journal). But the real reason to cite this story is because of this great line: "Andy Roddick’s early exit breaks the hearts of T.V. producers dependent on repeated Brooklyn Decker reaction shots"
• 3G Capital is acquiring Burger King (Wall Street Journal). Will that yield downloadable mobile burgers?
• Bernanke admits he "wasn't straightforward" on Lehman (Bloomberg). According to my thesaurus, here are some synonyms for being "not straightforward": dishonest, crafty, crooked, deceitful, evasive, fraudulent, oblique, shady, shifty, sly, surreptitious, tricky.
• Jobless claims decline (CNNMoney.com). Barely.
• Ten questions and answers on Apple TV (PCMag). Silliest uestion: Does Apple have a Twitter killer?
• In case you haven't refinanced yet, you might want to note the current 30-year mortgage is at 4.32% which is a new all-time record since records starting being kept in 1971 (did they not have mortgages before 1971?) (Wall Street Journal).
• Most interesting financial headline of the day: "I'm selling the house and piling the proceeds into Greek government bonds." (Telegraph)
• The verdict is in: People hate the new Digg (Mashable). Yes, I do too.

 

This bidding war between HP and Dell for 3Par says something to me about big technology companies: They are stuck. They can't grow internally, so they have to look outside the company.

If you think about the evolution of all big industries, they trend toward consolidation and giant companies eating up new companies in the search for growth and innovation. This certainly appears to be the case with players like HP, Dell, Microsoft, and Cisco. The new innovation is not coming from within, it's coming from outside.

Dell is making a big move into the data storage market with a $1.15 billion all-cash deal for 3Par Inc. It comes at an interesting time, as 3Par's growth and share price had recently slowed and it is still losing money. The offer is an 86% premium to 3Par's closing price Friday of $9.65

The move shows Dell has an interest in moving outside the commoditized world of PCs and comsumer electronics and into higher margin data-center products. 3Par specializes in building large storage arrays for corporations and data centers which can be "virtualized," or partitioned so that the system can handle data from many applications at once.

At any rate, it's paying off big for 3Par shareholders this morning with the stock indicating it will trade up nearly 85%.

• Hulu is said to be preparing an IPO that would value the company at more than $2B (New York Times).
• Japan's economy is stuck in its tracks again. And theoretically, that means China is now more powerful (Bloomberg). Bullish on Moo-shu, bearish on Sushi?
• Want a 4.4% mortgage? Good luck, says Fortune.
• China's currency fell to a seven-week low agains the U.S Dollar (Wall Street Journal). Remember all that noise about them strengthening the Chinese currency?
• This is what I want for Christmas: A Ferrari simulator (Physorg.com). Scratch that, I want a real Ferrari.
• Facebook is buying Chai Labs for $10 million (VentureBeat). Here's a fun fact: it was founded by a former Google executive.
• VCs and Super Angles: The War for the Entrepreneur (TechCrunch). Hmm, a bunch of rich arrogant people beating each other to a pulp. Sounds fun.
• Tim Ferriss thinks he has a way for you to read 300% faster (Tim Ferriss blog).

LAS VEGAS -- Who knew? I got something right. About a month ago, I advocated a complex trade involving AT&T. The main premise: The stock was cheap, the dividend was large, and there is a tendency for it to move up into the dividend payment date. So far, so good. AT&T is up about 10% since we looked at the trade. It's still set to pay a dividend that will pay about 6%.  The front-month options tripled into the expiration last Friday. I sold the stock and the options with a collective 20% gain in one month, but I probably pulled the trigger too early. AT&T has exhibited more stength today and likely will rise further on the wireless  hype associated with CTIA. Verizon, coincidentally or not, is also benifitting from the pattern of rising into the next quarter's dividend payment. Verizon is priced a little higher than AT&T, with a P/E of 23 versus AT&T's more modest P/E of 12. Verizon also pays a 6% dividend. The largest North American  service providers such as AT&T and Verizon both pay juicy dividends and will likely get a lot of attention here at CTIA, where every device manufacturer and their cousin will be making announcements about new smart devices on their network. These devices, many of them Android-powered, will be more open and Web-enabled than ever before. And they will be data-hungry. In its last earnings release, AT&T announced that growth in wireless data services and applications grew 26%, indicating that this is where the growth lies. I think more complex and data-hungry devices will only help this trend. AT&T announced today that it's adding new Palm and Dell smartphones to its  lineup. Everybody is also closely watching the 4G service annoucements here at CTIA, which will unleash even more bandwidth for data-hungry services. I think the bottom line is that these trends will be good for the leading service providers, including AT&T and Verizon. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint are likely to do a lot of sparring here about their next-generation wireless data services. In fact, it's already started. The bottom line? AT&T and Verizon appear to be consolidating their lead, and a wide range of data-hungry smartphones should be good for business.

We are doing some last-minute prep and packing our bags for the CTIA wireless technology show in Las Vegas next week, so we'll have limited posting today. But what we do have is a preview of the activity to watch.Here you go:

• Look for Sprint and HTC to be announcing the Supersonic: An Android powered mobile device with a 4.3-inch display that runs on Sprint’s 4G network (i.e., WiMax). It would be the first "WiMax Phone." I’ve heard a reference to this as the “Trophy Wife Phone.” Ha! Good one.
• More Android stuff. Most major networks including AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have announced support for Android devices such as Motorola’s Droid and Google's phone, made by HTC. Expect the same from Verizon next week.
• Verizon will be having an all-important event in which it is expected to talk about its LTE strategy. LTE is the next-generation of phone networks.
• In case you can’t wait for all the dumbed-down mobile tech news for the masses, CNBC will be broadcasting from CTIA.
• Keynotes: Tuesday, March 23: CTIA Chairman Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets; Randall Stephenson, chairman, CEO and president of AT&T Inc; Iñaki Urdangar n, chairman of Telefónica Internacional, USA Inc.; and J.K. Shin, president, Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Wednesday, March 24: CTIA president and CEO Steve Largent will host two fireside chats with industry leaders Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint Nextel and Bill Morrow, CEO of Clearwire. In addition, John Stanton, chairman of Trilogy International Partners; René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG; and Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco, will discuss the evolution of the mobile market and the innovations that will drive new growth. Thursday, March 25: CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera will moderate a keynote roundtable featuring Academy Award-Winning Director James Cameron, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone. The panel will discuss the transformative power of wireless and its continued impact on business, media and the economy. Full schedule is here.
• Tablets, tablet, tablets: Expect lots of previews of tablet-like devices that run on new wireless networks.
• Next-gen smartphones: The usual cast of characters such as RIM, Toshiba, Garmin, Samsung, Sony, and Nokia will be talking about next-gen smartphones that do all this and that. Here's a nice preview (TheStreet.com).
• As usual, government and Net Neutrality policy will be a big topic. The FCC is at it again, trying to mix up telecom. Light Reading has a nice video discussion on the matter. Or, see what Gary Bolton from Adtran has to say about the FCC plan.