Executives from five of Dell's latest acquisitions -- Quest Software, SonicWall, Wyse Technology, AppAssure and Force 10 -- say integration may take time but it will result in better products, more resources and improved channel programs.

"One of the core principles we try to operate with is we try to preserve all the great things we do [at each company]. When we look at a channel program, we look for key attributes that we can bring into our program and enhance PartnerDirect even more. All these companies are a great representation of that," said Bob Skelley, executive director of Global Certified Partner Program and Channel at Dell.

Skelley hosted an M&A panel during the Dell Global Channel Partner Summit at Dell World in Austin, Texas, this week and knows of what he speaks: He worked at EqualLogic when Dell acquired the company in 2008.

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For the executives from Quest, SonicWall, Wyse, AppAssure and Force 10-- and their partners -- the integration challenges might be ongoing but some benefits are already evident, they said.

"As we take everything that Wyse built: the end points, the software, the patents and intellectual property we have, we now have the ability to bring a true end-to-end story to market," said Jeff McNaught, who was named executive director of marketing and chief strategy officer of cloud client computing at Dell after it acquired Wyse.

For Wyse and its solution providers, the key was that Dell let Wyse continue its strategy post-acquisition, McNaught said. "They let us keep business as usual where business as usual is the right answer," he said.

Additional resources helped Wyse introduce new bundles to customers. "These were things we didn't have access to make it more easier and more profitable," McNaught said.

Likewise, Allen Arguijo, sales director for Americas Channels under Dell Networking, said the acquisition of Force 10 brought more resources than his company could have added by itself.

"Having Dell further invest in the company in terms of sales and engineering resources has helped us to respond to demand for our networking product and the engineering resources helped us bring to market the road map even faster," Arguijo said.

Marvin Blough, vice president of sales at Dell SonicWall, said SonicWall struggled trying to figure out how to grow before being acquired by Dell.

"With a smaller company, it's how you go to market. You have to make choices on investments, product development, sales and marketing. As a small company, those are big decisions. The biggest impact has been the worldwide infrastructure that Dell has in place. That's partner resources, sales, marketing but, more importantly, we can support your systems 24x7 worldwide now, things a smaller company would never be able to offer," Blough said.

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Todd Fredrick, executive director of AppAssure at Dell, said his company has benefited from Dell's "Better Together" strategy of cross-selling different solutions under the Dell umbrella.

"Being integrated inside storage arrays goes a long way. As we look across the entire portfolio, we see depth," Fredrick said. "The other thing is we were a newer company and we found the depth of channel knowledge that Dell brings [to be beneficial]. It gave us the ability to attach with other Dell storage, hardware and components."

Quest Software is Dell's latest acquisition and, only 70 days in, Michael Sotnick, vice president of worldwide channels and alliances, said it's too soon to see any tangible benefits of integration. But, he added, the quality of conversations around customers' workloads has improved.

"We're [talking about] how to address those workloads, how to solve them with the partner in mind. When we're done with a design point, we [ask] how can I enable my VARs, how can my channel be successful in deploying it," Sotnick said.

PUBLISHED DEC. 12, 2012