Dell: Wyse Channel Integration Will Mirror Other Acquisitions

Dell and Wyse Technology partners eager for information about how their two respective channel programs will integrate will have to wait a while longer.

"We have our own certification program for both hardware and software and the Dell [PartnerDirect] program also has its own certifications. We're going through those [integration] discussions as we speak and hopefully in the next few months we'll have more announcements," said Tarkan Maner, president and CEO of Wyse Technology, on a media conference call following Dell's announcement that the company has agreed to buy Wyse.

Maner and Dell executives said there are some intersections among their respective partner bases. Wyse has about 3,000 partners while Dell has more than 100,000 worldwide.

"There is some overlap. That's good news. I'm getting tons of e-mails, texts and calls from our partners right now on how they're excited," Maner said on the call.

Dave Johnson, senior vice president of corporate strategy at Dell, said the Wyse channel integration is not likely to differ from other acquisitions that Dell has made.

"As with all acquisitions, we fully embrace the channel. Adding 3,000 channel partners will broaden Dell's overall channel reach. We will retain these channel partners. The intent is, for those with no current relationship with Dell, to expand to sell the balance of Dell's portfolio and for our broader channel program, to enable them to sell Wyse. We view this as a great synergistic opportunity," Johnson said.

Maner cited Dell's "distribution, reach and brand value" as factors in the sale to Dell. "We believe our customers and channel members will benefit greatly," he said.

Dell's strategy is to add Wyse's thin-client technology to partners and customers to create an alternative end-to-end technology solution, said Jeff Clarke, president of end user computing at Dell.

"There are many places in the market where thin clients are being deployed. We view the hardware assets plus the software assets as getting integrated into Dell servers, storage, networking and services and providing end users with the solutions that our customers are demanding," Clarke said. "It's a change in the compute model and workloads. Whether it's health care or financial services, customers have specific workloads on how to drive security, [total cost of ownership and more. This is a way to address that in a different way."

Dell and Wyse executives said their relationships with other virtualization vendors, including Citrix Systems, VMware and Microsoft won't be impacted by the move today.

"We've been a great partner with all three vendors, based on customers' needs. This relationship takes it to the next level with all three," Maner said.

In addition, Clarke said the addition of Wyse allows Dell to "build through the eyes of customers in a workload-based software solution."

Next: Acquisition Brings Wyse 'Beyond MDM'

Aaron Rakers, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, wrote Monday that the acquisition is a smart one for Dell.

"In an August 2011 report, Gartner estimated that the evolution toward OS/Application Streaming in the client/PC market enables enterprises to leverage distributed-processing capabilities with increasing levels of security," Rakers wrote. "Gartner believes this will be a major trend playing out over the next 5-10 years; a trend we believe could play out as enterprises become increasingly comfortable with end users bringing their own devices into the enterprise."

Rakers also noted that at the Stifel's 2012 Technology & Telecom conference in February, that Maner estimated Wyse would generate $500 million in sales and has grown more than 100 percent for the last several years.

Wyse also is a player in the mobile device management space, with its PocketCloud solution.

The acquisition by Dell allows Wyse to go "beyond MDM" into enterprise mobile management when integrated with Dell servers, storage and more, Maner said. "We deliver enterprise mobile management, security, cost control and provisioning. It's an end-to-end solution for mobile devices that is great for channel partners," he said.