Yesterday the internets were humming with rumours again. Computerbuilder Dell has shown interest in buying a company in thin clients. Not long after it was confirmed that Dell and Wyse have signed a deal.

The official press release states:

“Dell has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, to significantly extend its desktop virtualization offerings. The addition of Wyse will expand Dell’s desktop virtualization capabilities and provide new market opportunities for the full range of Dell’s enterprise solutions and services.”

According to Jeff Clark, president End User Computing Solutions at Dell, Wyse strengthens Dell’s portfolio for Desktop Virtualisation. He states:“Desktop virtualization can help organizations streamline IT management, improve productivity and security, and increase cost efficiency for discrete workloads or usage scenarios. The Wyse Technology desktop virtualization capability complements Dell’s strongest-ever device and computing solutions portfolio, and strengthens our position in offering customers among the broadest set of computing choices from the edge to the core to the cloud.”

Wyse is actually a pretty ‘old’ company in IT. It was founded in 1981 in San Jose. It was one of the first to produce a thin client with PCoIP integrated into the device. Also, Wyse was one of the first to introduce the ‘Zero Client’ with almost no management needs. Lately Wyse was moving more and more into the software side of things with management suites and desktop virtualisation and cloud software solutions. Experts analyse the dealsize at 400-600 million dollars although some estimates go up to 1 billion dollars. The deal has yet to be approved but Dell expects to proceed with the transaction in Q2 2012.

We here at VMGuru.nl are wondering what is going to happen to a few intiatives Wyse has deployed in the recent past. Cisco recently has presented a number of thin clients in their portfolio. Under the hood these actually have Wyse hardware. Also, VMware OEMs it’s multimedia redirection from Wyse. It might not be in Dell’s interest to keep all of these relationships up.

More info and the official press release can be found at Dell’s website