Dell announced on Thursday that it is acquiring KACE, a systems management appliance company that targets mid-sized businesses and public institutions, including government, education and healthcare.
Dell said it was buying KACE to expand its systems management offerings to better address IT administrators in mid-size organizations. Terms of Dell’s acquisition of KACE were not disclosed. (Dell statement; KACE statement)
“We talk directly to thousands of these customers and they tell us they need systems-management tools geared for their environment,” said Steve Felice, president, Dell Consumer and Small and Medium Business, in prepared remarks. “The KBOX family of appliances is highly capable, quick to deploy, simple to use and provides a rapid return on investment, exactly the sort of best-value solutions we’re delivering to customers.”
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s KBOX appliances tout several capabilities, including:
- Device discovery, system inventory, and asset management
- Configuration management, including operating system deployment, power management software distribution, application virtualization and scripting
- System Deployment, Imaging and Windows 7 Migration
- End-point security via patch management, security-policy enforcement and vulnerability scanning
- Service management through integrated service desk, user portal and alerting
The idea? Help general IT pros at mid-size companies better manage their systems.
In a letter to customers, co-founder and CEO Rob Meinhardt detailed the future of the companies:
Increased investment by Dell in systems management – including expanding the KACE operation inside Dell – will put more resources into play to help customers save time and money using KBOX products and, moreover, will provide KACE with global market reach and added resources to increase KBOX product innovation and customer support. That means that KACE appliance technology and the supporting organization will be able to expand far faster and evolve more quickly than ever before. For our customers this translates to increased product development investment, greater international support, and higher levels of support that come with joining forces with one the world’s leading technology companies.
Meinhardt also wrote that support, sales contacts and processes will be unchanged, and all KACE employees will continue to be based in Mountain View.
He also wrote that he and president and co-founder Marty Kacin will have leadership roles in Dell and continue to lead the Dell KACE organization.
KACE says most of its customers have deployed their KBOX appliances in a week or less, and almost two-thirds said the products paid for themselves in less than three months.
KBOX supports heterogeneous environments with Windows, Mac and Linux. The products can also handle integrated application virtualization and are available as both physical and virtual appliances.
