Dell completes Compellent purchase

Virtualised storage firm adds beef to enterprise systems

Dell has completed its $940m (£579m) acquisition of virtualised storage firm Compellent, after the latter's shareholders voted through the deal in the US yesterday.

When the acquisition was first announced last December, Compellent was seen as a compensation prize for Dell, which had previously been involved in a bidding war with HP for 3PAR, another storage specialist.

That auction more than doubled the price HP eventually paid for 3PAR to $2.35bn.

However, Compellent's acquisition adds further strength to Dell's enterprise storage portfolio, which includes EqualLogic - acquired in 2007 - and PowerVault.

It is also seen by analysts as another step on Dell's journey from PC and server box-shifter to enterprise solutions vendor.

Compellent's Fluid Data architecture can cut storage costs up to 80 per cent, compared to conventional systems, by providing block-level intelligence to automatically place data on the right storage tier, the company says.

"Building a virtual environment using Dell and Compellent solutions has increased our operational efficiency as well as providing cost-effective performance," said Jim DiMarzio, CIO of Mazda in North America.

"The ability to automate more of the infrastructure including the data management has freed our IT team to focus on other innovative ideas to react quickly to the needs of our business and customers," he added.

Traditionally Dell has sold direct to its customers, whereas Compellent has operated through resellers. But Dell's transition from PC merchant to enterprise player has led it increasingly to use third-party systems integrators to fulfil multi-technology deals.

Dell confirmed that it will make extensive use of Compellent's resellers to hawk integrated solutions which include Compellent products.

"We have created a customer solution centre based on Dell server and Compellent storage infrastructure that allows our engineers to demonstrate the business value of these technologies," said Patrick Mulvee, vice president of sales at Sidepath, the systems integrator that installed Mazda's Dell and Compellent systems.