Security vendor Sophos plans to buy Astaro, a maker of network security software.

Dell said Thursday it is in advanced talks with storage vendor Compellent Technologies regarding a merger that would call for Dell to pay US$27.50 per share, or roughly $876 million, for the company.

Enterprise open-source software vendor Red Hat has acquired cloud software provider Makara, Red Hat announced Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Novell announced Monday it has agreed to be acquired by Attachmate for US$2.2 billion, ending months of speculation over its future. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.

Open-source data integration vendor Talend is expanding its footprint into SOA (service-oriented architecture), announcing Wednesday that it has purchased Sopera, developer of an open-source ESB (enterprise service bus) and other technologies. Terms were not disclosed.

Oracle announced Tuesday that it plans to buy e-commerce vendor Art Technology Group for about $US1 billion. The deal is expected to be completed early next year.

Google continues to aggressively pursue social-networking capabilities, this time with the acquisition of Angstro.

The bidding war for storage vendor 3PAR continued to escalate Friday, with Hewlett-Packard submitting a new offer of US$30 per share, or $2 billion. The offer topped a $27 per share bid made by Dell earlier in the day.

Now that SAP's roughly $US6 billion acquisition of Sybase has gained clearance from European regulators, it may not be long before the deal is finalised. With that in mind, users and partners of the companies have much to consider during the next few months, analysts say.