Dell Buys EqualLogic

Dell (DELL - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) agreed to buy EqualLogic, a maker of advanced storage-area network systems, for $1.4 billion in cash.

The deal will give Dell a presence in so-called iSCSI storage technology, which the PC giant said is the fastest-growing part of the storage business.

iSCSI allows for commands and storage traffic to occur over existing Internet protocol networks, leading to lower costs for multiple hardware and easier maintenance.

This past summer, Nashua, N.H.-based EqualLogic filed to go public following the hugely successful initial public offering of VMware (VMW - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), which is also a player in the "virtualization" segment. EqualLogic hadn't set a date for its IPO.

The EqualLogic purchase is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Dell's fiscal year, which ends in early February, or early in the fiscal first quarter. Dell expects the deal to cut earnings by a total of 2 cents to 5 cents a share for fiscal 2009 and 2010.

AP Is Dead ... Killed By Blogs & Aggregation

Rich Ord | CEO of iEntry, Inc.

Old media is epitomized by no news source more than the Associated Press. Literally thousands of journalists are employed around the world to bring current event coverage to readers of thousands of newspapers and their online sites.

In the pre-Internet days the AP had little competition beyond a few other news syndicators like Reuters and UPI. The AP's world has now changed forever with the advent of blogs and news

aggregation sites.

Blogs are the new "AP" journalists and aggregation services which started with NewsLinx.com in 1996 (founded by me!) and which now include Google News, Topix, Techmeme, WebProWire and the new Blogrunner have made the AP much less relevant. There are now tens of thousands of bloggers around the world providing coverage and analysis of current events too! It comes down to why pay when you can get the news for free.