Dell-EMC deal receives China’s approval

Dell’s massive acquisition of EMC reportedly has passed legal muster in China, clearing what is expected to be its last hurdle.

The acquisition, announced last October with an estimated value of US$67 billion, has been approved by Chinese regulators, according to the New York Post. That’s expected to be the last step toward closing the deal, though the companies may not announce its completion formally until next week. The combined company will be called Dell Technologies, while its PC business will keep the pure Dell name.

Dell-EMC is the largest IT acquisition ever, bringing together two companies that are powerful players in enterprise computing but face pressures from public cloud services and PC alternatives like smartphones and tablets.

According to industry experts, the deal will make Dell the biggest seller of enterprise storage gear, adding to the company’s computing, security, and networking businesses. In addition to storage, EMC will bring in security subsidiary RSA, the Pivotal cloud software business, and the VCE converged systems venture. Dell will also become the controlling force at virtualisation giant VMware, which is publicly traded but majority owned by EMC.

Dell hopes to use the combination to put together more integrated products, as well as to find synergies that will cut its costs.

The deal should make Dell more competitive with other giants of enterprise tech, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Oracle, and Cisco Systems. But like those rivals, Dell Technologies will be up against new cloud-based approaches to IT that require less investment in the kinds of systems these old-line vendors sell.