Systems management, cloud services likely in Dell's software acquisition plans

IDG News Service - Dell's formation of a new software group, which was announced Thursday, could be the forerunner to a string of acquisitions by the vendor, with some observers predicting a focus on systems management and cloud services provisioning.

The new division will be led by John Swainson, a former CEO of CA Technologies who has been credited with improving that vendor's operations during his 2005-2009 tenure. CA Technologies also grew massively through a long run of acquisitions, many of which pre-dated Swainson's time there. Prior to CA, Swainson spent more than 20 years at IBM in various software-related roles.

Importantly for Dell, "he's got a rep for making mergers and acquisitions work, and he's bringing them enterprise software credibility," said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research.

Given Swainson's background, it seems likely that any deals will focus on middleware and infrastructure first, with a potential move toward business applications later, said Forrester Research analyst Paul Hamerman.

Dell is already in the applications business, but as a reseller of products like Salesforce.com, with a focus on small and medium-sized businesses.

The company also has a head start in infrastructure and middleware, given its line of KACE systems management applications and past acquisitions such as data-integration vendor Boomi.

While Dell has the opportunity to become a one-stop shop for cloud applications to SMBs, it has some holes yet to fill, such as in BI (business intelligence), Wang said. There are ample acquisition opportunities in that realm, with the possibilities including Birst, Pentaho, QlikView and others.

Dell may also need to acquire an e-commerce vendor, such as Avangate, as well as a software license management company like Flexera, Wang said.

But a major applications acquisition, such as of close partner Salesforce.com, seems "highly unlikely," Wang said.

Still, such a purchase would also give Dell an array of PaaS (platform-as-a-service) technologies, from the Force.com platform to Heroku.

Dell has already ventured into IaaS (infrastructure as a service), announcing an OpenStack-based system last year, but a full-blown PaaS would require additional development tools and services.

"I don't know if they're going to build a platform or just put everyone else's together," Wang said. "Long-term if they want to be serious about software they have to be in PaaS."

Other observers expect Dell to make strategic acquisitions in systems management applications.

A product such as ManageEngine, which is sold by Zoho Corp., could be a wise buy for Dell and help it build out a "service cloud" of offerings for its SMB base, said Dylan Persaud, managing director of Eval-Source, which advises companies on software purchases.

Similar to products like Hewlett-Packard's OpenView, ManageEngine is "dirt-cheap for organizations to get into" but offers a significant amount of functionality, he said.