In an attempt to take the Dell brand back to the top of the pc world, Michael Dell has sets his eyes and dollars on IBM’s #1 acquisition deal maker, David L. Johnson vice president of corporate development. Sources state that Johnson, a 27-year IBM veteran who has spent nearly a decade overseeing deals for IBM is now being recruited by Dell to pull off a series of small deals aimed at complimenting Dell’s growing prowess in the data center.
“Dell has been clearly showing for the last year or two that they are going to be more than just guys who sell cheap computers,” says Gordon Haff, an IT advisor at Illuminata. “That inevitably means targeted acquisitions.” At IBM, Johnson was a master of that game. While HP has undertaken huge acquisitions–Compaq in May 2002 for $19 billion and EDS in August of 2008 for $13.9 billion–IBM has steadily sucked up smaller fare. Johnson could help Dell navigate such deals more effectively; of course, Johnson will have to extricate himself from IBM first.
