Dell to acquire Quest

Agreement reached as Dell looks to further monitor and automate in the datacenter environmentDell wants Quest's software expertise Dell is looking to further its position in the datacenter automation and monitoring space by entering a definitive agreement to acquire IT management software provider Quest. Dell will pay US$28 a share – amounting to about US$2.4bn –for the company it said will eventually provide software for use in server, storage, networking and end-user computing solutions and services offerings. Dell said the acquisition allows it to build upon its newly formed Software Group, which is aiming products at the enterprise solutions space. “The acquisition provides critical components to expand Dell’s software capabilities in systems management, security, data protection and workspace management,” Dell said. Dell said Quest’s One Identity and Access Management solution will add to its own SonicWall and Secureworks assets. Quest’s windows Server Management solutions will complement its application modernization practice following its recent acquisitions of Clerity Solutions and Make Technologies while its Database Management capabilities will be used alongside Dell’s enterprise offering. New automation capabilities will come from Quests Performance monitor and Foglight, which allows continuous monitoring of IT environments. Quest currently has more than 100,000 customers and generated US$857m in revenue in 2011. On top of the IP, Quest also has 1,300 software developers working behind the scenes. Last year Gartner VP Carl Claunch said software would become more important to hardware players moving forward due to its high margins and the dwindling performance of hardware. He said as a result we would see numerous companies such as Dell, Cisco and HP acquire software companies. “I am sure you will have noticed there has been a significant amount of mergers and acquisitions of major players buying other major players,” Claunch said. “We are also seeing a lot of movement of companies into new areas, in categories they weren’t involved in before, such as Cisco’s entry into the server market [and] HP into networking. “In some cases we are now see people who have never competed before coming head to head.” (You can hear Claunch’s full speech, which offers information on HP, Cisco and IBM in the software space here.) Dell has made it clear it is interested in acquiring software makers, but is also sticking to hardware investment and is on the hunt for storage and switch makers.