3Par - your blogger needs a brain transplant
I have just done a huge amount of work on virtualization (see the recent "geek" posts here and here and here and the post on Dell). I worked out where Dell was going on virtualization and understood that HPQ was likely to play "catch-up". (This surprised me - I was stunned how far Dell had travelled.)
I understood the 3Par acquisition - and knew that HPQ was also lacking in this area and thought that Dell was (cleverly) leaving Hewlett Packard strategically challenged. I also put a small short on HPQ because of this.
So - having got all that way it never occurred to me Hewlett Packard would overbid Dell for 3Par.
Going long 3Par was an easy bet. Its downside was protected by Dell's cash bid (which would completed as the deal was important to Dell and Dell could finance it with cash on balance sheet). The upside was an overbid by HPQ. It was a bet with very nice risk-return characteristics.
And I did not do it.
Politely that is "lack of execution" - but I should stop making excuses. One word for that one: dumb.
John