So another acquisition by a computer systems supplier of a networking infrastructure company. This trend started when Compaq acquired Thomas Conrad back in 1995, and is continuing today with the announcement that Dell is intending to acquire Force10 networks, according to information on both their websites released yesterday. No mention is made of price or mechanics of the deal.
“Today’s datacenter networks are too complex and require too much manual intervention. What worked in the past is no longer viable in the virtual era. Dell’s approach of offering customers open, capable and affordable solutions aligns with Force10’s approach to offering customers new levels of flexibility, performance, scale and automation which is fundamental to changing the economics of datacenter networking.” – Brad Anderson, SVP, Enterprise Solutions Group, Dell.
“We are excited to work with Dell. Combining Dell’s global scale, reach and enterprise portfolio with our innovation in high-performance networking provides our customers the best end-to-end solution for today’s and tomorrow’s data centers,” – Henry Wasik, CEO, Force10 Networks.
This will give Dell better control of the key grid and cloud infrastructure element that it is now missing, and access to the technology of Force10’s distributed core switch architecture (like that used by Juniper, see Juniper QFabric Switches use Autonomic Ideas).
