Dell Buys Allin’s Microsoft Services Expertise
Frequent readers of my blog will recall that I said the following when EDS was acquired by HP:
“The big loser in this has to be Dell who had been trying to make a move into that market, but with this purchase they might as well throw in the towel now as they have nothing that competes against IBM or “The New HP” as I am calling them. That’s because HP clearly made the decision to buy their way into that market rather than “roll their own” services arm like Dell has. And of course IBM has been in the services arena forever. That leaves Dell with nowhere to go IMHO.”
I also said this a little while later:
“Dell has bought some services expertise, but I don’t get the impression that their current offering is a coherent services proposition. For that reason I still think they need a bigger player like an EDS type of company to make it a coherent offering to customers.”
It looks like now Dell is trying to buy their way back into the game and give themselves an offering that they hope will attract customers to their services arm. They’ve acquired parts of a company called Allin for $12 million:
“The expertise we gain from Allin further deepens our ability to help customers exploit Microsoft technologies for business advantage,” said Stephen Murdoch, vice president, Global Infrastructure Consulting Services, Dell. “Dell’s focus is on helping customers simplify their IT environments to deliver more flexibility and faster returns. Allin’s capabilities and customer focus fit perfectly in this strategy.”
Let’s be clear about what this means. Dell is buying their services arm that designs and implements scalable networks and application architectures. Dell is NOT buying Allin’s interactive media and business process consulting units. What this means is this will further increase Dell’s services business, which in turn will allow them to sell more hardware.
Now $12 million for a company the size of Dell to acquire Allin is pocket change compared to the $14 billion that HP dropped to acquire EDS. Still, you have to give the dudes in Texas some props for stepping up their game. Let’s see how it works out for them. I still think one of their issues is this item that I mentioned previously:
“When I think of services, Dell is not at the top of the list. That’s likely a mindshare issue. I think that they have to address that if they want to compete.”
Game on Dell!
January 16, 2009 at 7:44 pm
I think that this is a great acquisition for Dell. I have always been impressed with Dell’s services and I think this will only increase their effectiveness.