Dell Buys Perot Systems, Then Sells To NTT Data

Dell’s sale of Perot Systems in 2016 was a huge win for channel partners as it opened the door for vast new services opportunities ahead of Dell’s acquisition of EMC.

Dell bought IT outsourcing giant Perot Systems in 2009 for a significant price tag at the time of $3.9 billion, tucking the company into its IT services subsidiary Dell Services. The subsidiary was home to well over 20,000 employees.

In a move to raise money for its historic $67 billion acquisition of EMC, Dell sold Perot Systems to NTT Data for approximately $3.1 billion. NTT Data had a network of hundreds of data centers operated by its parent company NTT.

Selling Perot Systems helped provide Dell with the cash the company needed to help pay down its nearly $50 billion debt it took on when acquiring EMC in 2016.

From a channel standpoint, the acquisition was significant.

Dell Services business shrank significantly following the sale, which paved the way for channel partners to make more services revenue.

Partners told CRN at the time that Dell would have a greater reliance on the partner community from everything from basic integrations and pre-sales to on-premises services to cloud management.

Ahead of its acquisition of channel-friendly EMC, Dell unloaded Perot and a large portion of its Dell Services arm to lean more heavily on partners to become the go-to services resource for customers.

Opening the services door wide open for channel partners was key to the success of the new Dell Technologies, which was formed out of the Dell-EMC merger.