SonicWall and Quest demerged from Dell Software

USA: Technology-focused private equity firm, Francisco Partners and Elliott Management have completed the acquisition of Dell Software Group and announced the spin-out of security software business SonicWall and IT management software Quest as independent businesses.

Dell bought Quest Software for $2.36 billion and SonicWall for $1.2 billion four years back.

Dell EMC will continue to resell SonicWall’s entire product portfolio as it has done since before the acquisition by Dell.

The company also named cybersecurity and networking veteran Bill Conner as its President and CEO. Conner previously served as CEO of Silent Circle and CEO of Entrust as well as President of Data Networks and then President of Enterprise Networks at Nortel Networks.

“This acquisition will better enable SonicWall to continue its journey in delivering world-class solutions and help defend against the explosive growth of new cybersecurity threats,” said Dipanjan “DJ” Deb, Francisco Partners’ co-founder and CEO.

Quest will be led by chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Hawn, who brings more than 15 years of experience as a software company executive. Previously, Hawn was chairman and CEO of Vertafore, a software provider for the insurance industry, and prior to that was chairman and CEO of the Attachmate Group, a provider of identity and infrastructure enterprise software.

“As companies continue to embrace business transformation, particularly through adopting cloud-centric technology models, they need a trusted partner through this critical journey,” said Hawn. “In relaunching Quest, our products will be purpose-built and backed by a level of support and services that will help our customers and partners succeed. We’ll take the best of what made Quest a market maker for the past 30 years and infuse a renewed focus on security and cloud.”