Silver Lake: Dell spinout of Boomi, other unit may make sense

Tom Paine

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A couple of months back, Silver Lake Partners, the PE giant that owns about 25% of the privatized Dell, raised the possibility that Boomi and another Dell unit, SecureWorks, be spun out in some way. One suggestion was a structure along the lines of EMC's "federation", which may seem dated as EMC's star fleet structure is under attack now.

SecureWorks, a cybersecurity firm, is speculated to have a standalone value of more than one billion. I don't see any valuations mentioned for Boomi, but the fact is Boomi needs to serve a broad horizontal market, not a vertical, and may not be best served operating from within the Dell structure if its going to reach its full potential.

So I have no idea whether any thing will come out of this, but when a Silver Lake managing partner who works closely with Michael Dell suggests it, I'd take it seriously. And I think the very fact that Boomi merits so much high-level consideration is testament to the enduring value of Rick Nucci's creation.

Read Fortune's article on Dell's possible moves and see its interview with Silver Lake managing partner Egon Durban. Discussion about Dell starts about 5:20 in.