Dell Plans Wyse Cloud Acquisition

Dell has announced its intention to acquire virtual desktop client provider Wyse Technology, the latest in a number of recent acquisitions by the computing giant.

The company said it has signed a “definitive agreement” with Wyse, with the deal subject to customary closing conditions.

Acquisition spree

No financial details were disclosed, but the transaction has been approved by both boards of directors and is expected to close in the second quarter of Dell’s 2013 financial year.

Dell said the takeover has been made with a view to extend its desktop virtualisation offerings and “strengthens Dell’s strategy to offer customers innovative, end-to-end IT solutions from the edge to the core to the cloud.”

Wyse was the largest shipper of thin client units in the fourth quarter of 2011 and has 200 million daily users of its products.

“Desktop virtualisation can help organisations streamline IT management, improve productivity and security and increase cost efficiency for discrete workloads or usage scenarios,” said Jeff Clarke, president for end user computing solutions at Dell. “The Wyse Technology desktop virtualisation capability complements Dell’s strongest-ever device and computing solutions portfolio.”

“The combination of Wyse and Dell provides us with tremendous growth opportunities for our core desktop virtualisation business, helps us expand into new and fast-growing market segments including mobility and cloud computing, and provides us with reach and scale we did not previously have,” said Tarkan Maner, president and CEO of Wyse Technology.

‘Another good move’

Dell made another cloud acquisition in the form information security services company SecureWorks in January 2011, while last month it announced plans to acquire firewall vendor SonicWall. It also secured a deal for backup and replication software maker AppAssure Software in February.

Analyst Clive Longbottom of Quocirca called the move “another rather good acquisition by Dell, by the looks of things.”

“Dell wants to make a much bigger play for virtualised desktops, and knows that thin clients have to be more of a direct offering from it, rather than partnering,” he commented. “By getting hold of Wyse, it not only gets the capability to offer the correct hybrid offering of PCs and thin clients, it also gets a raft of software that provides management of the types of devices and how they operate that can then be blended in with its existing KACE capabilities.”

The move also takes Dell into greater competition with long-time rival HP, which has a solid thin client business itself.

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