Michael Dell: 7 Keys To Bringing Dell Public Again

Michael Dell On Upcoming IPO

Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell is bullish about the decision to not merge with VMware after confirming on Monday that he will take Dell public again on the New York Stock Exchange as part of a share swap with its DVMT VMware software business tracking stock.

"This is a very different company than it was five or so years ago," said Dell during an analyst and media conference call Monday morning. "Earlier this year, we kicked off this process, looked at the various alternatives and concluded that [going public] was a great way to not only simplify the structure, but create flexibility for us and expose the great businesses we have here back to the public markets."

Here are the seven biggest statements Michael Dell said regarding the Round Rock, Texas-based company's decision to go public.

No VMware Merger Seen Ahead

"We are excited about VMware's independent future as a company," said Michael Dell. "As we examined all the options, you obviously know where we came out. We don’t have any future plans to change the structure. We're excited about the go forward. As it relates to VMware's independence, obviously there was a special committee involved at VMware that determined on their own that the dividend was in the best interest of all VMware shareholders and that this transaction would indeed be a very good thing for VMware. As you'll see in the various documents, should there be future considerations, there will be special committees again. But again, we don’t anticipate any specific transactions and are excited about VMware's future. Certainly, it's an important and growing part of Dell Technologies."

Decision To Go Public

"This is a very different company than it was five or so years ago," Dell said. "We're seeing tremendous momentum inside the business. Earlier this year, we kicked off this process, looked at the various alternatives and concluded that this was a great way to not only simplify the structure, but create flexibility for us and expose the great businesses we have here back to the public markets. As it relates to our storage and data center business, last quarter our data center business grew 25 percent – that's pretty extraordinary given our leading positions in the industry. The combination of assets and capabilities that we have in storage and compute along with VMware and Pivotal are really unmatched in the industry and that's all resonating quite well with partners."

Keeping VMware Talent

Michael Dell said he agreed with Dell Chief Financial Officer Tom Sweet (pictured) when Sweet said, "We felt that it was important for the VMware entity to continue to have a public currency, particularly as it relates to demonstration of financial strength. As well as from a talent, talent attraction, and talent retention for the types of software engineering talent that they compete with. So we continue to think that it's important for them to have that financial flexibility."

No Big Picture Changes Ahead

"We don’t anticipate any changes," Dell said. "If you look at the past five years, we have been consistently investing in growth and it's been working. We have had steady, strong share gains across our businesses and we intend to continue to do that."

'Growing Partner Program'

"We've accelerated our pace of innovation through continued investments in research and development," Dell said. "In fact, over the past three years our cumulative research and development investments have been over $12 billion dollars. That innovation has helped us capture and maintain leadership in virtualization, servers and storage. And our roughly 40,000-person sales force and growing partner program have consistently delivered competitive wins including with many of our largest customers who represent 99 percent of the Fortune 500."

'Effectively' Cross Selling

"While some of our competitors have been cutting costs and trimming their portfolios, Dell Technologies has continued to invest heavily in product development and sales capacity," Dell said. "We've been very effectively cross selling, for example, with VMware and Pivotal. We continue to focus on innovation in the software-defined solution area and we've designed our workforce accordingly. Approximately 85 percent of our engineers are software engineers. Today Dell Technologies stands above all others in the industry with an unmatched portfolio from the edge, to the core, to the cloud, and we are the trusted technology partner to help customers with their digital transformation."

'Cross Business Governance'

"Dell Technologies is becoming an even more important solution provider in the broader IT ecosystem," Dell said. "We have deeper and more strategic customer relationships, a proven go-to-market model, business momentum and technology innovation -- all supported by an internal culture of winning. Our family of businesses operates and will continue to operate with a better together approach with cross business governance from the executive level, all the way through the functioning levels."