Boomi boss: Why we sold to Dell Computer

"We weren't looking to sell," says Boomi chief executive Bob Moul, a day after giant Dell Computer of Round Rock, Tex., confirmed it's acquiring the Berwyn communications-software firm for a sum neither will name.

"We'd been working on a business arrangement since the early part of this year," with Dell negotiating how to refer clients who want to link computer devices to their main business software via Boomi, Moul recounted.

"We started talking about a resale arrangement. The senior executives of Dell came to visit," led by Steve Felice, president of consumer and small-and-midsized business. "Next thing they wanted to acquire us," and Dell fonder Michael Dell ca,e on the phone with Boomi founder Rick Nucci and Moul confirming the arrangements.

"He's very excited. He loves the disruptive nature of what we do, how we disrupted the legacy-systems integration space." Dell started spilling at the deal at an industry gathering, fueling rumors that Dell was about to buy Rackspace or another higher-profile company and forcing Tuesday's Boomi deal disclosure.

Dell's recent deals have brought in infrastructure software makers like Scalent Systems and Kace Networks. "This is different. It's a move further up, into the application integration space. We make software that makes business applications, like Salesforce for example, talk to your customer-relationship management software," like Oracle or SAP. "It's a pretty important building-block for Software-as-a-Service and cloud computing," which isn't tethered to old-fashioned servers.

10-year-old Boom was started by Nucci with backing from Mike West, then-chief investment officer at the former ICI Films in Wilmington and later head of an SAP consulting practice. "He was our first angel investor," Moul told me. Moul joined the company from Boomi's board in 2005. He'd previously run SCT, the college- software firm that's now a part of SunGard, which is currently in the throes of a reorganization.

Some 30 Boomi workers in Berwyn and 10 more in the San Francisco area get to keep their jobs. And more may be coming: "They wanted to make sure we had a good longterm lease. They're asking us for expansion space in the building" Boomi occupies at Brandywine Realty Trust's Berwyn Park develpment. "The cool thing is, we're kind of the nucleus of a newly-forming software group at Dell. It's all about what we have to do to grow as Dell moves into the cloud."