Dell completes its $3.9 billion offer for Perot Systems, which will now be known as Dell Services. The move gives Dell a significantly larger services business with which to compete against IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Having Perot in the fold increases not only Dell's services capabilities but also its customer base.Dell has completed its $3.9 billion offer to buy Perot Systems, a move that
will give the PC maker a significantly larger services business.
Perot will now become Dell Services, which will be headed by former Perot CEO
Peter Altabef. Altabef will be president of Dell Services and will report to CEO
Michael Dell.
Dell announced the completion of the deal Nov. 3.
"Customers around the world want flexible, scalable solutions to reduce
complexity and drive even greater benefit from IT," Michael Dell said in a
statement. "The Dell Services businessformed out of the powerful
combination of Dell and Perot Systemsis an exciting step forward in our
ongoing commitment to develop and provide best-value IT solutions."
Dell
officials announced Sept. 21 that Dell was buying Perot to bulk up its
services business, a key part of the strategy under Michael Dell to lessen his
namesake company's reliance on its traditional PC business and expand its
capabilities.
The hope within Dell is that bringing in Perot Systems will enable it to
build a services business that could rival those of IBM
and Hewlett-Packard.
Acquiring Perot Systems expands Dell's services reach into such areas as
hosting, consulting, applications and business-process outsourcing, according
to the company. It also adds to Dell's existing managed and modular services.
With Perot in hand, Dell not only increases its customer base, but also will
have more than 41,000 services employees and annual services revenue of about
$8 billion.
Dell officials said the company now owns more than 90 percent of Perot
stock, and expects to get the remaining shares "promptly."