3PAR said today that it has accepted Hewlett Packard's $33 per share offer for the firm, and Dell said it would not increase its proposal, ending the bidding war for 3PAR. HP and Dell have been locked in a bidding battle since August 16th, when Dell initially offered $18.00 per share for 3PAR. HP soon entered the fray, and the firms traded increasingly large bids in an attempt to gain control of 3PAR.Continue →

San Jose-based Cisco announced this morning that it is buying Arch Rock Corporation, a developer of wireless network technology for smart grid applications. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Arch Rock, which is based in San Francisco, develops Internet Protocol-based wireless mesh networking technology. Cisco said the acquisition would complement its recently announced joint development agreement with Itron, a maker of smart meters....Continue →

San Francisco-based Recurve, which provides both energy efficiency software and green energy remodeling services, said yesterday that it has named Andy Leventhal as the firm's CEO. Leventhal was most recently founder and CEO of Planet Metrics, which was sold in January to Parametric technology, and has also served at EMC, VeriSign, Red Hat, and Imperva. The firm said that Leventhal replaces Pratap Mukherjee, who is leaving to pursue unspecified other opportunities....Continue →

Palo Alto-based Inflection, which runs the websites Archives.com and PeopleSmart.com, said this morning that it has raised $30M in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Matrix Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures. As part of the investment, Greg Sands of Sutter Hill Ventures and Josh Hannah of Matrix Partners are joining the company's board. Archives.com offers up historical records and information, mostly for genealogy and family history use, and PeopleSmart.com is a people search engine....Continue →

Hitachi Ltd. is considering an IPO of its hard drive unit, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, according to the firm Wednesday. Hitachi's storage unit has a heavy presence in San Jose, where it maintains major operations. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was formerly IBM's disk drive unit, until IBM merged its hard drive unit with Hitachi in 2003. No details on the IPO have been released, however, reports name Goldman Sachs as one of the underwriters....Continue →

San Jose-based VeriFone Systems said this morning it has acquired the assets of WAY Systems, a developer of mobile, point-of-service (POS) products and gateways for merchants. According to VeriFone, it will pay $6M upfront and up to $3M in earnout, based on performance targets, for WAY. WAY Systems has raised more than $50M in funding, from Bill Melton, the founder of VeriFone, plus Bessemer Venture Partners, Austin Ventures, and Lighthouse Capital Partners. WAY Systems was based in Boston....Continue →

Santa Cruz-based Rally Up, a developer of the Rally Up and Faceplant mobile applications, has been acquired by AOL, AOL said Tuesday. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to AOL, it is adding Rally Up's team to its Consumer Applications and Mobile effort. As part of the acquisition, AOL said it is opening up a new West Coast office in Palo Alto. The new team will report to David Temkin, Vice President of Mobile at AOL.Continue →

Palo Alto-based VMware, which develops virtualization and cloud computing products, said today at its VMworld conference that it has acquired Integrien, a developer of application and infrastructure performance analytics software, and TriCipher, a developer of secure access management and enterprise identity software. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed, however, a source close to Integrien places the buy at around $102M....Continue →

Menlo Park-based venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners announced today that it has closed Institutional Venture Partners XIII, at $750M. According to the firm, the later-stage venture capital and growth equity fund will be focused on rapidly growing technology and digital media companies throughout the United States. The new round brings IVP's total, committed capital to $3 billion, and is significantly larger than IVP XII, the firm's 2007 vintage, $600M venture capital fund....Continue →

Palo Alto-based PageBites, which operated a job search engine and aggregator, has raised $10.3M in a new round of funding, according to a regulatory filing by the firm Monday. No details on the funding have been announced. PageBites site now redirects users to job listings on Imo.im, an instant messaging startup run by PageBites' founders Ralph Harik and Georges Harik. It's unclear if the funding is for PageBites, or for Imo.im.

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Sunnyvale-based Arcot Systems, a developer of software used for authentication and fraud prevention, has been acquired by CA, a cash deal worth $200M. According to CA, it will use the acquisition to add technology for fraud prevention and advanced authentication to its identity and access management offerings. Arcot Systems was venture backed by Accel Partners, Granite Ventures, ONSET Ventures, SEB Venture Capital, and Vedanta Capital. Arcot was headed by Ram Varadarajan....Continue →