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Hewlett-Packard Co. is bidding $1.5 billion for data storage provider 3Par Inc., offering 33 percent more than what rival Dell Inc. agreed to pay for the company just a week earlier.

The PC maker hopes to sell its new tablet computer to the public sector as well as consumers.

Dell's quarterly profit improved 52% as shipments jumped and revenue grew in each product segment, although margins again fell.

Dell reported a 5% drop in fourth-quarter earnings Thursday, but the computer maker beat Wall Street's expectations on solid sales across all its segments as businesses started spending on IT again.

Dell and AT&T plan to launch a smartphone running Google's Android next year, according to a report, as Dell's years-long flirtation with the mobile industry appears ready for the next step.

Dell Inc reported stronger-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday, showing it was better able to cut costs and protect prices on its products than analysts, or its own executives, had predicted.

The company is researching the possibility of offering new Linux-based mobile devices called smartbooks, said Todd Finch, senior product marketing manager for Linux clients, at the OpenSourceWorld conference in San Francisco. The company will also upgrade its Ubuntu Linux OS for netbooks to the latest version in the next few weeks, he said.

Punished by plummeting sales of computers, Dell presented investors with its lowest fourth-quarter profit since 2002.

The Wall Street Journal is weighing in on Dell's rumored smartphone offering, adding further weight to rumors predicting the PC maker will enter the arena to take on Apple's iPhone.