Dell Buying Datacenter Networking Firm

Dell is buying Force10 as a trend toward software being offered as services in the Internet "cloud" pushes demand for efficient, capable datacenters where the computing work is done.

"Combining Dell's global scale, reach and enterprise portfolio with our technology in high-performance networking provides our clients the best end-to-end solution for today's and tomorrow's data centers," said Force10 chief executive Henry Wasik.

The Silicon Valley city of San Jose

Force10 has its headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose and has grown into a global operation boasting near $200 million in annual revenue since it was founded in 1999.

Dell, which has its headquarters in Texas, has been beefing up its business products portfolio in recent years and deemed Force10 a natural complement to its strength in the server market.

"Today's datacenter networks are too complex and require too much manual intervention," said Dell enterprise solutions group senior vice president Brad Anderson. "What worked in the past is no longer viable in the virtual era."

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