Dell sells software business to investors

Dell Software Group is acquired by investors Francisco Partners and Elliott Management Group. Dell will likely need to sell its security, management and data analytics business to fund the EMC acquisition.

The total amount of the deal was more than two billion dollars. With the acquisition, the two companies will have Quest Software and SonicWALL in their portfolios. Quest Software and SonicWALL together have about 180,000 customers.

Dell paid $2.4 billion for Quest in 2012. SonicWALL was acquired around the same time for an undisclosed amount, although that would have been around $1.2 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

According to Reuters, one of the reasons for the sale is that Dell needs money to pay for the acquisition of EMC. Dell will acquire EMC for $67 billion if EMC shareholders agree on July 19. An interesting detail is that one of the most important investors in EMC is the Elliott Management Group.