Dell to acquire MessageOne

Dell has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MessageOne, Inc., the US-based e-mail business continuity, compliance, archiving and disaster recovery services company. The acquisition, for approximately $155 million in cash, has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

MessageOne's suite of services helps eliminate the downtime and complexity associated with managing, archiving, e-discovery, and long-term storage of e-mail.

"This is a valuable acquisition for Dell. MessageOne's offerings add key capabilities to our growing SaaS-enabled services portfolio for the most critical application to businesses of any size - e-mail," said Steve Schuckenbrock, president, Dell Global Services, and chief information officer. "MessageOne's services not only meet the needs of large companies - with an impressive roster of existing Fortune-500 customers and marquee partners as proof points - but can also scale down cost effectively to meet the needs of small and medium business customers."

The Dell Board of Directors took a number of additional steps as part of the acquisition process because the transaction involves related parties. As outlined in Dell's current report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that will be available at www.dell.com/investors, MessageOne was co-founded by Adam Dell, Michael Dell's brother, and is owned in part by two investment funds, Impact Venture Partners and Impact Entrepreneurs Fund, managed by Adam Dell. Michael Dell, Susan Dell, a trust for the Dell's minor children, and Mr. Dell's parents are also investors in the Impact funds. Adam Dell also serves as MessageOne's non-executive chairman of the board.

"We recognized as we began considering a potential acquisition of MessageOne that related-party interests existed and that this required a series of measures designed to ensure that the transaction was considered, analyzed, negotiated and approved objectively and independently," said Don Carty, Dell CFO and vice chairman. "The process that our Board of Directors put in place provided the high degree of independence and diligence required in this circumstance," said Mr. Carty.

•Date: 18th February 2008• Region: US/World: •Type: Article •Topic: BC markets
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