Dell planning acquisition: WSJ

The newspaper, citing people who have recently spoken with its chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, said the Round Rock, Texas-based company wants to expand its data-storage and tech-services businesses.

The Journal said Dell, which has more than nine billion dollars in cash reserves, sold one billion dollars in bonds on Wednesday.

A Dell spokesman told the newspaper the debt offering was "for general corporate purposes, and among the possibilities -- and certainly no commitment has been made -- are acquisitions."

The Journal noted that Dell recently hired David Johnson, a high-profile mergers and acquisition executive from rival IBM.

It said it is not clear whether Dell is currently engaged in merger discussions with any companies.

The Journal said Dell, which has been losing personal computer market share to Hewlett-Packard in recent years, is banking on acquisitions to reverse three years of disappointing growth.

It noted that Dell's move comes as other technology leaders make acquisitions of their own.

Intel last week said it was buying software company Wind River Systems for 884 million dollars and data-storage makers NetApp and EMC are battling over storage-software company Data Domain.

(c) 2009 AFP