Dell and Quest Software today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for Dell to acquire Quest, an IT management software provider offering a broad selection of solutions that solve the most common and most challenging IT problems.

Dell recently announced the formation of its Software Group to build upon its existing software expertise. The Dell Software Group will add to Dell’s enterprise solutions capability, accelerate strategic growth and further differentiate the company from competitors by increasing its solutions portfolio with Dell-owned intellectual property.

Quest’s family of software solutions and key technologies are strongly aligned with Dell’s software strategy. The acquisition provides critical components to expand Dell’s software capabilities in systems management, security, data protection and workspace management. In addition, Quest’s software portfolio is highly complementary to Dell’s scalable design approach to develop solutions that scale with customer needs. Some examples include:

• The Quest One Identity and Access Management solution family adds to
  Dell’s very strong set of security assets with SonicWALL and
  Secureworks, creating a comprehensive set of security solutions to
  address important customer needs.
• Quest’s Performance Monitoring solutions for applications, networks
  and databases address a rapidly growing need for our customers.
  Industry analysts have consistently ranked Quest Foglight as a leading
  application performance monitoring solution. Businesses of all sizes
  are looking to reduce their IT complexity and automate workloads for
  their IT departments. Customers worldwide leverage Foglight to
  continually monitor their IT environments, proactively identifying and
  remedying performance issues before they become bigger problems.
• Quest’s Windows Server Management solutions complement Dell Services’
  rapidly growing application modernization practice with recently
  acquired Clerity Solutions and Make Technologies.
• Effective database management is critical to the successful operation
  of most organizations. Quest’s Database Management capabilities offer
  a strong complement to Dell’s enterprise offering. Today, millions of
  DBAs, developers, and analysts around the world rely on Quest’s
  database management tools to simplify their work.

Quest has a diversified software portfolio and generated $857 million in global revenue based on its fiscal year 2011 results at gross margins of 86 percent and operating margins of 11 percent. Quest supports heterogeneous and next-generation virtualized environments across leading platform vendors. The addition of Quest, including its 1,500 software sales experts and 1,300 software developers, to Dell’s existing software expertise in systems management, security and cloud integration, is the foundation of a $1.2 billion software business, based on annual revenue.

Quest, established in 1987, is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, Calif. and serves more than 100,000 customers worldwide, including 87 percent of the Fortune 500. The company has approximately 3,850 employees and operates 60 offices in 23 countries.