Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
Home / News & Blogs / Between the Lines

Dell gets more channel religion; Buys EqualLogic for $1.4B

By | November 5, 2007, 6:19am PST

Dell said Monday it will buy storage vendor EqualLogic in a deal worth $1.4 billion in cash.

EqualLogic makes iSCSI storage area network gear that’s optimized for virtualization. Dell’s motive is to use EqualLogic to bolster its storage lineup and channel ties.

Dell added that the EqualLogic purchase will hurt its earnings per share outlook by about 2 cents a share to 5 cents a share in fiscal 2009 and 2010.

While the storage lineup is worthwhile, Dell seems to see that channel as a big benefit to the deal.

In a statement, Dell said:

Dell plans to grow EqualLogic’s successful channel-partner programs with current and future EqualLogic-branded products, and also plans to incorporate EqualLogic technology into future generations of its Dell PowerVault storage line available through the channel and direct from Dell.

Coupled with Dell’s partnerships on the retail side of the house the PC vendor seems to be getting channel religion.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “Between the Lines”

Topics

Dell Computer Corp., EqualLogic, Storage, Hardware, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

4
Comments
Add Your Opinion

Join the conversation!

Just In

RE: Dell gets more channel religion; Buys EqualLogic for $1.4B
tomreaney@... 6th Nov 2007
It's time for Dell to wake up and smell the roses. Dell also has a huge "unoffical" reseller channel base - it's real, it purchases products and services from Dell and needs proper recognition from Dell.

Dell's championed Sales model can still stay intact.
How? Why?
Savvy customers - be they SME's, Education or End Users know they don't have the skills required to select, setup and configure a system. This is where
the reseller channel come in and creates a solution for the customer- result is happy customer, happy Dell (another sales) and happy channel (makes margin).

Tom in Ireland
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
Religion for the day
smithwillscott 5th Nov 2007
Dell, like all other technology companies, only holds the channel in regard when it's convenient. All too often, achieving corporate goals by doing deals direct quickly relegates the channel to the rightful position: only when it suits us category.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Dell gets more channel religion; Buys EqualLogic for $1.4B
dwilkins@... 5th Nov 2007
We have been an Equallogic customer for years. I hope that Dell leaves this division alone and does not try to mess with the support organization. They are top notch unlike Dell support. There product and services are far superior to Dell and should not be touched.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Dell gets more channel religion; Buys EqualLogic for $1.4B
11bravo 5th Nov 2007
Holy crap!
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Dell gets more channel religion; Buys EqualLogic for $1.4B
tomreaney@... 6th Nov 2007
It's time for Dell to wake up and smell the roses. Dell also has a huge "unoffical" reseller channel base - it's real, it purchases products and services from Dell and needs proper recognition from Dell.

Dell's championed Sales model can still stay intact.
How? Why?
Savvy customers - be they SME's, Education or End Users know they don't have the skills required to select, setup and configure a system. This is where
the reseller channel come in and creates a solution for the customer- result is happy customer, happy Dell (another sales) and happy channel (makes margin).

Tom in Ireland

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix