List of mergers and acquisitions by Dell

List of mergers and acquisitions by Dell

Dell's headquarters are in Round Rock, Texas.

Dell is an American multinational technology company based in Round Rock, Texas. The company was founded in 1984 when Michael Dell, then a student at the University of Texas at Austin, formed PC's Limited with US$1,000 in capital.[1] Four years after the company's founding, in 1988, Dell raised $30 million in its initial public offering and increased its market capitalization to $85 million.[2] The company has acquired ten companies, purchased stakes in four companies, and divested two companies. Of the companies that Dell has acquired, eight were based in the United States. Dell has not released the financial details for most of these mergers and acquisitions.

Dell's first acquisition was ConvergeNet Technologies on September 8, 1999. The company acquired Alienware, a specialty computer desktop manufacturer, on May 8, 2006 for an undisclosed sum and integrated it into the company's high-end product line. Alienware's acquisition introduced several new items to Dell products, including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) microprocessors; all of Dell's previous computer chips were from Intel. To prevent cross-market products, Dell continues to run Alienware as a separate entity but still a wholly-owned subsidiary.[3] The company acquired EqualLogic on January 28, 2008 to gain a foothold in the iSCSI storage market. Because Dell already had an efficient manufacturing process, integrating EqualLogic's products into the company drove manufacturing prices down.[4]

From 1999 to 2000, Dell purchased stakes in four companies. It also divested two companies, in 2000 and 2008, in which parts of the company are sold to another company. Dell's largest acquisition was New Hampshire-based EqualLogic in January 2008 for $1.4 billion. The company made the most acquisitions in 2008 with three: EqualLogic, The Networked Storage Company, and MessageOne.