Dell Buying Perot Systems For $3.9 Billion 92
alphadogg writes "Dell has agreed to buy Perot Systems for around $3.9 billion in cash, and intends to make the company its global services delivery division, the companies said Monday.The deal will allow Dell to expand its range of IT services, and potentially allow it to sell more hardware to existing Perot customers, it said. Dell's rival Hewlett-Packard expanded its own global services unit with the acquisition of EDS for $13.9 billion in May 2008. Over the last four quarters, Dell and Perot together had revenue of $16 billion from enterprise hardware and IT services, with $8 billion coming from enhanced services and support, Dell said. Perot's contribution to that is relatively small: In 2008, the company reported total revenue of $2.78 billion."
Interesting Buy.... (Score:4, Insightful)
...and somewhat a reaction to HP's buy of EDS, I think.
Perot has some penetration inside the federal government, though I've never encountered one of their workers. Most of the job adverts I've seen require TS/SCI, so, probably some interesting stuff.
The question is whether Dell will be able to leverage it into other areas. I'm not sure how bright the future is in government IT services these days, following the monumental clusterfucks that HP and NG have chaperoned last few years (NMCI, and VITC).
Sounds good for Dell (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally speaking buying any company outright that made 2.8bil last year for only 3.9bil is a steal. That's less than half what the company is worth on paper based on earnings alone.
Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been to both Dell and Perot headquarters.
I ran into Ross (Sr.) in the lunch room. The entire HQ on Plano Parkway might as well be a history museum.
Contrast that with Dell's clinical feel.
It will be interesting.
Pretty funny (Score:5, Insightful)
H. Ross Perot starts a company (EDS [wikipedia.org]), grows it into a huge business and sells it to GM in 1984. He presumably gets bored spending his billions on trivial things like yachts and mansions and uses it to start Perot Systems [wikipedia.org] in 1988. HP, looking to pick up some of that IBM Global Services [wikipedia.org] kind of action, purchases EDS in 2008 and to counter Dell acquires Perot Systems. Looks like Perot is nothing but an IT services arms dealer!
Re:Interesting Buy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Government Healthcare. In the medium/long term there are going to be some big contracts to be had. This is likely Dell positioning for these potential contracts. Having a global footprint doesn't hurt. Also HP did it so it must be a good idea. 4B is nothing to shake a stick at so one must think this was a very carefully thought out acquisition.