by Phil Soran, President, Dell Compellent — February 22, 2011
To our customers, partners, shareholders and employees:
Today, Dell announced that it has successfully completed its acquisition of Compellent. Before I go any further, let me just pause to say thank you.
We didn’t become the world’s fastest growing SAN company by ourselves. We got a lot of help from our loyal customers, partners, employees and shareholders. I believe this acquisition validates the trust you placed in our business and our technology. The opportunity in front of us wouldn’t be here without your passion and hard work.
As for the opportunity ahead, our shareholders approved the merger because they recognized the synergies between Compellent and Dell. For both, our roots are entrepreneurial and our cultures are similar, we have a shared vision for the future of IT – and we’ve separately engineered innovative technologies in line with our vision. From today on, our two companies will work as one to make that vision a reality for enterprises around the world.
As we celebrate this milestone in both companies’ successful histories, I’d like to offer a few thoughts about the days ahead:
What This Means to Our Employees
Nine years ago today three guys got together in the basement. And I want to acknowledge my partners, John Guider and Larry Aszmann. Guys, take a bow. In 2002, when we started this company, we had a vision: to create a company that would innovate and improve on the existing state of storage – to create fluid technology that encouraged customers to purchase fewer, not more, drives; to provide excellent service and support; and to be a true and honest partner to the channel and to our customers.
I’m very proud of the achievements of our employees – how we created something worth almost a billion dollars in value. Let me give some examples of the great work done by our team over the years:
- Delivered $414.9 million in total revenue from 2004 to 2010
- Supported a total of 1,300 dependents and employees
- Teamed with 522 channel partners
- Processed 23,506 sales orders, and
- Shipped 7,000 controllers in 4,100 systems to 2600 customers
Not many companies can say they did that. Together, this team started a business, raised money, built a product, found channel partners, and turned it all into something much bigger than the sum of its pieces and parts – bigger than all of us. And together we will help Dell redefine the data center.
What This Means to Our Customers
First and foremost, I want to emphasize that our world-class customer experience will not change. I recognize that for many of our valued customers, Copilot is their favorite Compellent feature and our customers can continue to count on that personalized level of service excellence you have come to know and love from our great Copilot team.
Dell is committed to adding more resources to support our customers, and more resources to keep innovating our product. Together with Dell, we can accelerate new features, new integration, and scale deeper into the data center to help customers turn IT from a cost center to a flexible business productivity center. I thank you for your support and it’s very gratifying to see such great enthusiasm for joining the Dell family.
What This Means to Our Channel Partners
You’ve heard me say that the channel is in our DNA. Our goal with Dell is to protect and grow Compellent’s channel relationships. Dell announced a long-term registration program for all Dell PartnerDirect channel partners that are certified to sell storage, helping partners grow and nurture their customer relationships as trusted IT advisors once they have sold a Dell storage solution.
All current Compellent partners will be “grandfathered” into the Dell Certified Partner Program as Storage Certified Partners, which offers many benefits, including access to a diverse portfolio of products, healthy margins and list-price discounts. More information about these benefits can be found on the Dell PartnerDirect site.
The New Dell Storage Forum 2011
We have joined forces to launch a combined storage conference to help partners and customers get the most from their product investment and ongoing relationship with us. Our first ever Dell Storage Forum will take place June 5-11, 2010 in Orlando, Florida at the Walt Disney Resort. This is where storage magic will happen. The new conference will take all of the things you love about C-Drive and grow it into a bigger event. It’s also the first time Dell will dedicate a track just for channel partners.
Scott Horst’s blog explains why it made sense for us to combine C-Drive with the EqualLogic user conference, two very successful events, into one for the entire Dell storage community. We will also look at hosting Europe and Asia events throughout the year – so stay tuned for updates.
Thanks to your vision, loyalty and support, we have created a community that is passionate about innovative storage technology. Innovation is core to Compellent and our award-winning product. We know we have something very special in Compellent. And Dell recognizes it too.
Thank you.
Phil