Dell to Acquire Compellent

The acquisition is the latest strategic investment by the company as it expands its portfolio of enterprise-class storage solutions.

Dell yesterday announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Compellent Technologies, Inc., a provider of Fluid Data storage solutions, for it to acquire Compellent. The company says that the acquisition is its latest strategic investment as it expands its portfolio of enterprise-class storage solutions and is consistent with the company's strategy to help customers better manage data growth, reduce storage costs and dramatically simplify the management of IT infrastructure.

It claims that the acquisition of Compellent will deliver on the company's commitment to provide its customers solutions that are open, capable and affordable. The company delivers an open and integrated approach to data management that drives efficiency and dramatically reduces costs by streamlining operations.

The company states that upon closing the transaction, it will quickly make Compellent an integral part of its storage portfolio, including PowerVault, EqualLogic and Dell/EMC. Compellent expands the company's storage solutions, which now offers customers systems and choice at every storage tier, from direct-attach to highly-virtualized SANs. it also plans to keep Compellent's existing operations in Eden Prairie, Minn., and will invest in engineering, support, operations and sales capability to grow this business.

It articulates that Compellent sells its solutions through an extensive network of channel partners. The company plans to maintain and enhance the strong channel program that Compellent has developed. It also signed a reseller agreement with Compellent that extends the storage portfolio it can offer its worldwide customer base, effective immediately.

The company further states that under terms of the agreement, approved by the boards of directors of both companies, it will pay $27.75 per share in cash for each share of Compellent for a total equity value of approximately $960 million, and aggregate purchase price of approximately $820 million, net of Compellent's cash. The transaction, which is subject to approval by Compellent's shareholders and customary closing conditions, is expected to close in early 2011.

"Compellent is a natural complement to Dell's expanding enterprise storage portfolio. The Compellent storage platform will enable Dell to provide customers additional mid- and high-end network storage solutions that simplify and reduce the cost of data management," said Brad Anderson, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Product Group. "Compellent's design focus on intelligently managing data to increase efficiency, agility and resiliency is consistent with Dell's approach of building solutions that can quickly scale to meet the most demanding enterprise environment."

"We are excited about our merger with Dell. This is the next logical step in our goal to scale our products, channel and team worldwide," said Phil Soran, President, CEO and Chairman of Compellent. "With Dell's scale and technology leadership, we accelerate the adoption of our virtualized platform, Fluid Data, to redefine the value of enterprise storage for data centers and cloud computing."