Funny how life seems to follow fantasy. Not 2 years ago Dell was looking across the great divide trying to understand how they would or could grow their business. Along comes a series of acquisitions and here we go. Not sure how these will all be folded into the Dell environment, at least in the short term, acquisitions of AppAssure, SonicWall and apparently now Quest, will certainly create both confusion with the customer base and frustration from their long-term Backup & DR vendors; Symantec, CommVault and Acronis. Not to mention the confusion this will certainly cause for the Dell Reseller/Partner Community. Although as a vendor in this space we love the focus and valuation that Dell has placed on this massive backup & DR market space, it is still unclear is this will hurt or help the backup market. Will this simply commoditize the space or will it bring more focused attention and value to a highly confused solution space.
Not sure that others will feel the same way about the values that Dell is striking for these acquisitions, but the focus clearly indicates the importance of Backup & DR in the IT space. If a company executes and has a solid Go To Market strategy then yes they should be rewarded with good valuations. Regardless of the outcome, it appears that the gauntlet has been through down by Dell and we'll need to see how other major players in the market respond. Exciting times are here, let have some fun!!!
