DellDell has entered into an agreement to acquire SilverBack Technologies, one of a handful of leading managed service platform companies offering IT monitoring and management services through resellers, the company announced today.

Dell has been facing declining market share, as well as rampant reports of poor customer service and support. As a result, it announced two months ago that it would be creating a formal channel program.

Dell said in a statement that the SilverBack deal was part of an ongoing strategy of IT simplification. The company declined to provide further comments on when the deal might be finalized or terms of the deal. The only detail that it would divulge is that SilverBack will fall under Dell’s services division.

According to eWeek’s Channel Insider:

SilverBack’s technology allows service providers to remotely monitor, manage and configure parts of a customer’s IT infrastructure across the Internet… By expanding its services capabilities to allow for remote management of customer infrastructure such as servers, storage and networking hardware, Dell is poised to take a leap into a role as not just a hardware purveyor but the virtual IT department of small and midsize businesses.

Dell spokesman David Graves notes, “Services are a key part of Dell’s strategy for long-term growth, and this will be added to Dell’s capabilities for delivering those. [The acquisition] rounds out that overall services strategy.”

Sentiment is generally positive about the impending acquisition, though some expressed caution over Dell’s eventual plan for SilverBack.

Read more here:

Dell to Acquire MSP Platform Provider SilverBack

SilverBack Technologies Press Release

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