Private-equity firm Francisco Partners and hedge fund Elliott Management on Monday said they would buy Dell’s software group for an undisclosed price, as the Round Rock, Texas-based computer giant continues to shed assets while focusing on its deal for storage vendor EMC.
The buyers said that the deal would bolster their respective technology portfolios due to Dell software group’s diverse combination of security, systems and information management, and data analytics solutions.
Included in the deal are the operations of two firms Dell bought in 2012, tech-security company SonicWall and business-software maker Quest Software.
“Quest Software and SonicWALL provide mission-critical software to a large and loyal base of more than 180,000 customers, and we see significant opportunity to build upon the company’s impressive technology and product portfolio,” Francisco Partners’ chief executive Dipanjan “DJ” Deb said in a press release.
Dell lately has been attempting to expand from its traditional hardware businesses and into software, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Now, Dell is focusing on the data-storage hardware and data-center software from VMware, which are being brought in from the EMC deal, and getting out of some previous bets,” the WSJ wrote.