Dell moves to acquire Quest Software
updated 12:30 pm EDT, Mon July 2, 2012
Latest hedge against sliding PC sales
Dell has announced plans to acquire Quest, a company that specializes in enterprise software. The move represents Dell's latest restructuring effort as it boosts investments in enterprise and software products to hedge against sliding revenues from its consumer and PC divisions.
"The addition of Quest will enable Dell to deliver more competitive server, storage, networking and end user computing solutions and services to customers," said Dell software group president John Swainson.
Following lackluster quarterly results with a 33 percent fall in profits, Dell last month outlined plans to slash its overall expenses by more than $2 billion over the next three years. Competitor HP is reacting to the evolving market with its own job cuts and restructuring, eliminating 27,000 positions while investing in cloud, big data and security products.
The Quest buyout is said to cost HP nearly $28 per share, totaling $2.4 billion. The price was determined as the result of a competitive bidding process that als involved private equity firm Insight Ventures and an unnamed third party.
Dell expects the deal to be finalized by the third quarter, however the buyout still faces regulator scrutiny.
