The bidding war for the Santa Clara, California-based little-known specialty storage maker, Data Domain, took a somewhat dramatic turn on Monday, when data-storage biggie EMC boosted its offer to $2.1 billion, in the hope of pushing out its rival bidder NetApp.

According to analysts, the over 10 percent raise of stake in the EMC bid - $33.50 per share - may see the deal ending up in the company's favor, with NetApp being almost shoved out of the competition, for the acquisition of Data Domain's obscure yet valuable "data de-duplication" technology.

Putting forth the newly-revised EMC bid - in a letter to Data Domain's Chairman Aneel Bhusri - the company's Chief Joseph Tucci removed the break-up fee and other deal protections.

According to statistics, the Data Domain sales are increasing at a much faster than either EMC or NetApp - thanks to the company's "data de-duplication" appliances, or its singular hardware together with specific software, which can supposedly cut costs of storing and backing up data, by bringing about a reduction in the quantity of duplicated information in electronic documentation.

Expressing his opinion about Data Domain's "data de-duplication" technology, Peter Bell of Highland Capital Partners said: "This is not some little feature. If you're going to be in the storage business, your customers are going to be asking for this."