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Technology Stocks : Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PCSS who wrote (686)	5/31/2002 5:40:02 PM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Respond to of 4345

Dell Acquires Computer-Services Company Plural Inc. By: Gary McWilliams, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal AUSTIN , Texas -- Dell Computer Corp. acquired Plural Inc., a closely held U.S. computer-services company, in its first significant move to expand its small professional services unit. Financial terms of the purchase weren't disclosed, a Dell spokesman said. New York City-based Plural, with 200 employees and 2001 revenue of $46 million, would about double the size of Dell's professional-services staff. More than two years ago, Dell signaled it might make "strategic" acquisitions in the services arena. After scanning the market for consulting companies, it lowered its ambitions and began looking at small-scale business that could be fit into its own professional-services unit. Dell, like many of its peers, has been anxious to expand sales of higher- profit services, storage and big systems to offset falling margins in PCs. In Plural, it is getting a Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM: MSFT - News) software specialist with big-name customers in the financial services, retail, pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries. The 13-year-old service company's business took off with the late 1990s boom in electronic-commerce projects built on Microsoft software. More recently, its sales suffered with the decline in dot-com businesses. Earlier this year, Dell hired Jeffrey M. Lynn, a former Compaq Computer (CPQ - News) Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) computer-services executive, to oversee the expansion of its technical-consulting unit. Mr. Lynn had left Compaq as the Houston computer maker was early in talks to be acquired in a $19 billion stock-swap with Hewlett-Packard Co . (HPQ), Palo Alto, Calif. H-P completed that acquisition earlier this year. Plural president Neil Isford, who joined Dell, reports to Mr. Lynn, vice president of Dell's Americas Services unit, the spokesman said. Brooks L. Gray, an analyst at market watcher Technology Business Research, Hampton, N.H., said the acquisition isn't likely to be Dell's last. "This is a starting point. I would expect to see a number of small acquisitions over the next few years," said Mr. Gray. Dell will need more such acquisitions to become a more credible provider of services for higher-end server and storage products, he said. -Gary McWilliams, The Wall Street Journal, 713-547-9206