TECH STOCKS: EMC's Deal For Isilon Heats Up Tech Sector

By Rex Crum

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks finished mixed on Monday, with Isilon Systems Inc. shares leading the action after EMC Corp. said it would buy the data-storage-technology company in a deal worth $2.25 billion.

Isilon (ISLN) shares climbed $7.48, or 28.5%, to close at $33.77 after EMC (EMC) said it would buy the company for $33.85 a share. Isilon specializes in "scale-out NAS," or network-attached storage, used by corporations to store and manage data.

EMC shares were fell 27 cents to close at $21.45 following the deal's announcement.

Data-storage companies have been seen as prime acquisition territory since Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Dell Inc. (DELL) engaged in a bidding war for 3Par Inc. that ended with H-P acquiring 3Par in September for $2.4 billion.

Among other data-storage companies that have been seen as possible acquisition targets, Compellent Technologies Inc. (CML) shares climbed $1.36, or almost 6%, to close at $24.58 and CommVault Systems Inc. (CVLT) tacked on 75 cents to end the day at $29.87. STEC Inc. (STEC), which counts on EMC for a large portion of its business, rose 5 cents a share to $16.30.

Other gains came from H-P, Dell, Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT).

Apple Inc. (AAPL) fell 99 cents a share to close at $307.04. Apple hinted at a new offering on Tuesday for iTunes with a message on its home page, and on the iTunes store, that said "Tomorrow is just another day. That you will never forget," and to check back Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern for more information.

The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) picked up where it left off with last week's rough performance, falling 4.4 points to close at 2,513.

Declines also came from Akamai Networks Inc. (AKAM) and Limelight Networks Inc. (LLNW) after Oppenheimer analyst Srinivas Anantha cut his rating on Akamai to perform, or the equivalent of neutral, from outperform, and lowered his take on Limelight to underperform from perform.

Anantha said he made the moves following a reassessment of the content-delivery network market after Level 3 Communications Inc. (LVLT) said it reached a deal to be the main CDN provider for Netflix Inc. (NFLX).

Akamai's shares fell $2.56, or more than 5%, to $47.21 while Limelight gave up 86 cents a share, or more than 11%, to close at $6.78.