Earlier this week Dell trumped Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) $24 a share offer, but that was yesterday’s news. The bidding war between HP and Dell is getting more interesting as HP raised its offer from $27 a share (announced mid-week) to $30 a share.

Dell’s offer of $ 24.30 per share was made on 23 August and would see it pay $1.6bn (over £1bn) for all common 3Par stock.

But if Dell thought this would be enough to dissuade HP from the game, they were wrong.

On 26 August HP made its offer which was $3 higher than its original offer; 11% premium over Dell’s latest bid, which values the company at $2bn.

Since Dell made its original bid at $18 per share on 16 August the price offer per share has increased dramatically.

The stakes are rising quite quickly and it will be interesting to see who ends up making the acquisition.

While Dell may have made the first move, at $53bn its annual revenues are half of those of HP ($115bn). For Dell it maybe one of those games from which it is safer to walk away.