It might not have sorted out the question of its ownership just yet, but that hasn’t stopped Dell from gobbling up smaller companies as it looks to retool its core businesses. In its latest acquisition, Dell has just snapped up enterprise cloud management solution provider Enstratius, a move that should give it a serious boot up the ass as it aims to carve out territory in the fast-moving world of software led infrastructure.

Enstratius should prove to be a useful acquisition for Dell. Founded in 2008, its cloud management software-as-a-service offering to hybrid and single-cloud customers have proved itself to be incredibly versatile. The technology has proven itself with a wide range of platforms due to its ‘cloud agnostic’ nature, performing equally well with Dell’s offerings, as well as those from AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, OpenStack, Vmware, Rackspace, and quite a few others.

Enstratius’s strength lies in its cloud management capabilities, which give IT staff the ability to quickly and easily deploy multiple component apps across as many clouds as they desire.

According to its press release, Dell is planning to use Enstratius’ technology to complement its recent acquisition of Gale Technologies, a deal it completed back in November last year. Gale has since been transformed into Dell’s Active System Manager, which is now a part of its new Enterprise Systems and Services Group. According to Tom Kendra, vice president and general manager, systems management, Dell Software, Enstratius will complelment its Active System Manager by “enhanced multi-cloud management and application configuration capabilities, integrating converged offerings with cloud systems management.”

What with this latest acquisition, Dell’s cloud and enterprise portfolio is increasingly shaping up to be a powerful-looking one as it forges ahead with plans to transform itself into a full-featured, enterprise-orientated service company. Dell has made numerous acquisitions over the past three years, snapping up an array of promising server, services, storage and networking firms as it looks to develop the products that can give it an edge in software-led infrastructure, virtualization, storage and Big Data markets.

There’s little doubt that Dell is strongly positioned to compete in these areas, yet question marks will remain over its ability to do so while the question of its ownership remains unanswered. As Wikibon’s David Floyer previously pointed out on theCUBE, CEO Michael Dell has been banking on his buyout offer being accepted to boost the company’s prospects of growth. In its current situation, constricted by the whims of its shareholders, Dell’s transition will be an uncomfortable one to say the least, as it will come under heavy pressure to grow its profits at the same time as it pursues its software-defined dream.

Should Dell be able to go private, it will be able to reconfigure its businesses without needing to worry about investor concerns. For now its future remains in the balance, but so long as Michael Dell gets his way, the company looks to be very well placed to fulfill its ambitions.