One of Dell’s key service partners, Wang, has been bought by Dutch services giant Getronics. The deal is worth around $1.36 billion, with the combined company worth an estimated $5 billion. Wang is the world’s number five IT services company and this deal saw its shares valued at more than 14 per cent more than the closing market price yesterday. Getronics is paying $29.25 per share for the 46.7 million outstanding Wang common shares. Despite its size, things haven’t always gone smoothly for Wang - in 1992 it filed for bankruptcy. It now has a turnover of around $3 billion and employs 20,000 people. The company pointed to falling demand for its wordprocessor machines as a reason for its struggle to survive in the early 90s. It got out of hardware manufacture to concentrate on services. ®