NEW DELHI, INDIA: Dell Inc may have lost the bidding war for 3PAR Inc to Hewlett-Packard Co, but the data storage industry offers plenty of other targets.

Since Dell was willing to spend over $2 billion on 3PAR, analysts said the company could go after other small, niche technology companies, although they may no longer be bargains as deal speculation has boosted share prices.

Also Read: HP wins 3PAR for $2.4 bn, Dell drops out

"It is definitely a loss for Dell, but this is a situation where they were competing with someone about four times their size," said Andrew Redmond, an associate in the technology investment banking group of investment banking firm TM Capital.

Analysts say potential targets in data storage could include Compellent Technologies Inc, whose shares jumped 18.5 percent on Thursday; CommVault Systems Inc, whose shares rose 5.2 percent; Isilon Systems Inc, which rose 3.5 percent; as well as privately held Pillar Data Systems and DataDirect Networks.

Such companies aren't the same as 3PAR, which specializes in high-end storage that can help large companies handling high volumes of data. But by spending less on a medium or lower-end data storage company, Dell could invest more in developing it to a more advanced level.

"Dell wants to and needs to expand the enterprise storage side of their business," said TM Capital's Redmond. "There are a lot of smaller private companies that are a ... little below the radar and there are definitely a lot of opportunities."

Some analysts said Dell could look at Compellent -- with a market cap of $566 million -- to boost its presence in the mid-sized storage solutions aimed at small and medium businesses. Dell entered this market in 2008 with its purchase of EqualLogic.

Compellent, which helps firms store and recover vast amounts of data and serves the mid-market data storage market with relatively low-cost products, could fetch a price anywhere between $700 million and $1 billion, according to analysts.

That would imply a forward price-to-sales multiple of 3.8 to 5.5 times, according to Reuters data. HP's deal for 3PAR valued it at more than 8 times estimated forward sales.

"There are plenty of very valuable storage companies out there to buy," said IDC analyst Benjamin Woo.