Summary
During this economic downturm, for sure Dell has some decisiosn to make to acuire some strategic IT asset to complement their portfolio especially at the current market value. The fact they recruit a dedicated M&A person and issued that1B$ just confirm that aspect. They plan something big or several mid ones. Dell has also to reassure the financial community, their ecosystem and their large account users.
Analysis
During NetApp and EMC battle to acquire Data Domain, Dell could potentially target CommVault to fill their hole in the data protection space and start their own offering. The other consideration is that CommVault Windows installed based is important and DeDuplication embedded in Simpana 8 is fantastic. We heard that Dell was interested by Asempra acquired a few weeks ago by BakBone to increase Windows applications coverage. These really represent small move. But with that huge amount of available finance, why limit this consideration to storage, Citrix is still a good target and the battle against Symantec could be interesting as well. And to go broader, what about Cloud Computing or Storage provider, Dell considers seriously this IT wave for the next decade and the future. We'll see.
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
