Dell’s attempt to establish itself as a go-to supplier of cloud storage infrastructure is hanging in the balance this morning as the market waits to see if it will continue to bid against HP for control of 3PAR. Dell must decide today if it will counter HP’s latest bid $30 per share offer for 3PAR, but financial analysts expect it to back down in the face of HP’s deeper financial resources. Read the full story

In what is almost certain to be the biggest IT security announcement of the year, Intel has announced plans to acquire McAfee in a $7.6 billion move designed to harden the security of the mobile Internet.

The deal is expected to lead to the widespread deployment of embedded security features in smartphones and other handheld Internet terminals. Intel says this will prevent the mobile Internet falling victim to the same levels of malware penetration that have afflicted the PC world. Read the full story

Dell’s credentials as a potential single-source of data centre infrastructure were boosted earlier this month when the PC maker announced its pending acquisition of Scalent Systems.

Scalent’s V/OE (virtual operating environment) is a set of standards-based interfaces for automating and remotely managing the provisioning and reconfiguring of data centre resources from a single web-based console. Read the full story