In a clear indication that the world’s top two PC bigwigs, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell, are looking for beyond the PC arena, the two companies are involved in a high-tech bidding war for the rights to the Fremont-California-based data-storage provider, 3Par.

With Dell having offered $18 per share for 3Par last week, HP Monday initiated the bidding war by upping the Dell offer by 33 percent – with its $1.6 billion, or $24 per share offer. After the new offer by HP, the shares of 3Par have soared a whopping 45 percent to $26.09.

Noting that the HP-Dell wrangle over 3Par further reflects a surge in acquisitions of storage companies, Peter Bell, general partner at the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Highland Capital Partners, said: “The gross margins in storage are more than double those of PCs. HP and Dell spent a lot of the past few years cutting costs. Now, it's time to grow.”

In fact, the recent flurry of acquisitions by both HP and Dell also indicate that the two PC giants are apparently witnessing a decline in their PC profits, which make up a large chunk of their total revenue.

In addition, with PC companies requiring a place to store vast amounts of data - for video clips, e-mail, reports and presentations -, firms like 3Par are fast becoming the hottest properties because they make tools that can search, shrink, shuffle and otherwise manage the ever-increasing data.