Emulex Shrugs Off Broadcom’s Bid

Emulex (NYSE: ELX) once again rejected Broadcom’s (NASDAQ: BRCM) advances today, saying the company’s hostile takeover bid “significantly undervalues Emulex’s long-term prospects and is not in the best interest of our stockholders.”

Broadcom’s offer two weeks ago to acquire Emulex for $9.25 a share apparently followed merger talks in December and January.

In a letter to Broadcom, Emulex executive chairman Paul Folino said the takeover offer fails to consider the company’s promise in the emerging market for data center network convergence, as data storage and Ethernet networks begin to converge.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) have been at the center of that convergence, while Emulex and competitor QLogic (NASDAQ: QLGC) are making the cards and adapters to bring SANs and LANs together.

Just last week, QLogic acquired 10GbE startup NetXen to strengthen its own unified fabric offerings, and QLogic itself has been the subject of acquisition rumors.

Emulex said it has achieved “numerous design wins” for its CNAs and convergence management framework, including five “tier one” 10Gb/s Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) placements, three 10Gb/s iSCSI CNA placements and four 10Gb/s Fibre Channel over Ethernet CNA placements. Those moves have doubled its market reach, Emulex said.

Read the full story at InternetNews.com’s sister site, Enterprise Storage Forum.