Dell buys IT firm EMC for $67 billion in largest tech deal in history

Dell has just completed the single most substantial acquisition in the history of technology, paying a whopping $67 billion for EMC Corporation, one of the biggest names in data management.

Bringing EMC into the fold is extremely advantageous for Dell, who plans to bolster its data computing sector with EMC's valuable expertise in services like cloud management, enterprise-grade backup, recovery and archiving, and data virtualization. EMC powers a huge portion of the world's business data management, with companies across the globe utilizing its wide array of services to encrypt, analyze and interpret massive data streams across a wide variety of platforms.

"The combination of Dell and EMC creates an enterprise solutions powerhouse bringing our customers industry leading innovation across their entire technology environment. Our new company will be exceptionally well-positioned for growth in the most strategic areas of next generation IT including digital transformation, software-defined data center, converged infrastructure, hybrid cloud, mobile and security," said Michael Dell. "Our investments in R&D and innovation along with our privately-controlled structure will give us unmatched scale, strength and flexibility, deepening our relationships with customers of all sizes. I am incredibly excited to partner with the EMC, VMware, Pivotal, VCE, RSA and Virtustream teams and am personally committed to the success of our new company, our customers and partners."

The deal notes that VMWare, a firm that specializes in virtualization software and cloud data management, won't be absorbed into Dell and will be its own publicly-traded company. VMWare is known for being the first company to successfully virtualize x86 architecture for commercial use.

In order to raise the massive capital for the acquisition, Dell relied on MSD Partners (Michael Dell's own investment firm) and tech investment company Silver Lake. The press announcement notes that the union between Dell and EMC represents "the world's largest privately-controlled and integrated technology company", and it's fair to say that a good portion of the world's businesses will now be relying on Dell's services.