Dell Completes Acquisition of Compellent

Dell Inc. completed its acquisition of Compellent Technologies, Inc.

Compellent shareholders approved the acquisition at a special shareholder meeting.

The Compellent acquisition is Dell’s latest strategic investment to expand its enterprise storage portfolio which includes EqualLogic and PowerVault. The combination of Compellent technology with current Dell storage solutions significantly advances the Dell strategy to help customers better manage data growth, reduce storage costs and dramatically simplify the management of IT infrastructure.

Compellent Fluid Data technology combines a data movement engine, software and modular hardware that can help cut costs up to 80 percent. The Fluid Data architecture provides block-level intelligence to automatically place data on the right storage tier to optimize performance and maximize cost savings. Compellent’s open, future-ready design integrates with applications and infrastructure, enabling customers to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades. In addition, the Compellent SAN is backed by Copilot Support, which goes beyond traditional support offerings by identifying and resolving problems, often before they happen.

Dell plans to leverage Compellent’s channel offerings to create the leading storage program in the industry, through its partners and new initiatives. Dell will combine the best of both companies’ channel deal registration programs, extend this new deal registration program to all partners, and introduce a program in which partners can grow and nurture a customer relationship once they have sold a Dell storage solution.

Dell also announced an expanded Dell Storage Forum 2011, which will now include Compellent solutions and channel partners. Previously known as the EqualLogic User Conference and Compellent C-Drive, the combined conference will offer keynotes and training on the Dell storage portfolio and will include a channel partner-specific track to provide partners information and resources needed to quickly add new Dell storage solutions to their portfolio.

Under terms of the agreement, Dell paid $27.75 per share in cash for each share of Compellent for a total equity value of approximately $940 million, and aggregate purchase price of approximately $800 million, net of Compellent’s cash. The amounts include the value of Compellent shares currently held by Dell at closing.

Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Enterprise Product Group, said:" Compellent complements our storage portfolio by providing next-generation storage solutions and proactive support that help enterprise customers optimize and automate the management and protection of their data. Dell continues to invest in areas that help customer’s efficiently manage their massive data growth and provide the leading enterprise solutions for the virtual era."

Phil Soran, president, Dell Compellent, said:" Compellent and Dell share the vision of helping enterprise and cloud customers optimize their storage investments. Compellent’s Fluid Data architecture helps deliver the vision by allowing customers to keep the right data on the right storage at the right costs. Our team is committed to helping Dell transform the data center with open, capable, and affordable solutions that allow customers to do more with their IT dollars."

Jim DiMarzio, CIO, Mazda North American Operations, said:" As an enterprise dedicated to making products that zoom-zoom, Mazda requires its computing infrastructure to be just as responsive. Building a virtual environment using Dell and Compellent solutions has increased our operational efficiency as well as providing cost-effective performance. The ability to automate more of the infrastructure including the data management has freed our IT team to focus on other innovative ideas to react quickly to the needs of our business and customers."

Patrick Mulvee, vice president of sales at Sidepath Inc., a systems integrator, said:" Customers such as Mazda have chosen innovative technology from both Compellent and Dell, enabling them to increase efficiency, agility and resiliency in their enterprise and cloud environments. Sidepath has created a customer solution center based on Dell server and Compellent storage infrastructure that allows our engineers to demonstrate the business value of these technologies for data management, disaster recovery and virtualized data centers. We’re thrilled at what the future holds for this new Dell enterprise powerhouse – and for our partnership as a reseller."