SAN FRANCISCO - In an effort to boost its managed IT services portfolio, Dell on Thursday agreed to acquire desktop services management company Everdream.

The acquisition will expand Dell's presence in the rapidly growing managed IT services market, said Steve Schuckenbrock, Dell senior vice president, in a statement.

Based in Fremont, California, Everdream offers on-demand software and managed services for desktop management. Dell agreed to acquire Everdream for an unspecified sum and the transaction is expected to close this quarter.

Dell plans to integrate Everdream into its global services organization and expand the acquired company's business, said David Frink, a Dell spokesman. As the transaction hasn't closed yet, any speculation on layoffs in Everdream would be premature, Frink said.

Dell has been pushing hard to improve its systems management portfolio, especially desktop management capabilities that could help simplify complex IT infrastructures.

In a keynote address Wednesday at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, Dell CEO Michael Dell stressed the company's efforts to simplify the management of IT systems by providing the capability to manage desktops remotely.

In October, the company announced On-Demand Desktop Streaming, a server-based platform that streams the OS, applications and data to diskless desktop clients over a Gigabit Ethernet network. In July, Dell acquired SilverBack, which provided on-demand support and maintenance software to manage IT services.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.