From arstechnica:
Dell was taken private in 2013 in a $25 billion leveraged buyout by founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake. Even before the buyout, it had been increasingly positioning itself as an enterprise-oriented firm, expanding its server, storage, and security offerings in a bid to move away from the slim margins of the PC business. Merging with some or all of EMC would be consistent with this shift.
source: arstechnica / Wall Street Journal
