EMC extends deadline for its Data Domain bid

EMC has extended from June 29 to July 10 the deadline on its US$1.8 billion offer to purchase all outstanding shares of storage backup vendor Data Domain, in an effort to entice Data Domain to abandon a deal with NetApp.

Data Domain, in late May, had agreed to be acquired by NetApp for $1.5 billion, but EMC made its $1.8 billion on June 1. NetApp then boosted its offer, and Data Domain said both bids are worth about $30 per share.

On June 15, Data Domain's board of directors recommended that the company's shareholders reject the EMC offer, saying that backing out of the NetApp deal could leave the company without a buyer. Data Domain had not been able to negotiate with EMC with the NetApp offer on the table, and the EMC offer could still fall through, the board said.

EMC's offer remains the better one because it's an all-cash offer, not a cash and stock deal, Joe Tucci, EMC's chairman, president and CEO said in a statement. The EMC offer "delivers to Data Domain stockholders the price certainty and price protection its management team and board stated as important priorities during their negotiations with NetApp," he said in a Friday statement.

Data Domain had no further comment Monday.

Data Domain makes enterprise backup products and has been a pioneer in data deduplication, a technology for reducing capacity requirements that most storage companies are now using.

IDG News Service

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