Perhaps 3PAR has made up its mind. Dell announced this morning that 3Par has accepted its increased offer for $27 per share in cash. The latest counter bid matched HP’s late-day offer for 3Par, which we covered last night.

From Dell’s released statement,

The cash tender offer, through a wholly-owned Dell subsidiary, is for all outstanding shares of 3PAR common stock, without interest, and subject to reduction for any federal back-up withholding or other taxes. The offer documents will be amended to reflect the new offer price, but this will not alter the timing of the acquisition. Unless extended, the tender offer and any withdrawal rights to which 3PAR stockholders may be entitled will expire at midnight, EDT, on Sept. 20, 2010. Following acceptance for payment of shares in the tender offer and completion of the transactions contemplated in the merger agreement, 3PAR will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dell.

If the whole thing is getting a little redundant to you, let’s take a moment to step back and see the larger picture. Dell and HP are anxious to have a more complete data storage system, taking the reigns for this necessary industry growth. Several companies in the industry have been making acquisitions towards the expansion of their hosted solutions, striving towards a similar strategy. Dave Vellante of The Wikibon Project adds perspective, commenting,

“In my view, this deal is far more strategic than the EMC/Data Domain acquisition. That was a defensive move on EMC’s part, this is offensive. Both HP and Dell want to own 3PAR because it’s part of their cloud computing play. 3PAR has been focused on so-called utility computing since its founding and that singular focus has allowed it to penetrate cloud service providers very deeply. This is a strategic play for both HP and Dell and, in my opinion, the final buyout will be $2B or more.”