Dell, Inc., which announced last week that it was in “advanced discussions” regarding a merger with Eden Prairie-based Compellent Technologies, Inc., said Monday that the companies have reached a deal.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell has entered a definitive agreement to purchase Compellent for $27.75 per share-up slightly from the $27.50-per-share offer that the company announced last week. The total equity value of the deal is $960 million.

Dell plans to maintain Compellent's existing operations in Eden Prairie, and it intends to invest in engineering, support, operations, and sales capability.

“Dell is going to offer everyone at Compellent a job before the close of the acquisition, and we are going to continue hiring,” Compellent spokesman Liem Nguyen told Twin Cities Business on Monday.

Nguyen said that Dell has reached retention agreements with Compellent's senior leadership team as part of the acquisition, including Phil Soran, president, CEO, and chairman.

Soran said in a news release that the merger is “the next logical step in our goal to scale our products, channel, and team worldwide. With Dell's scale and technology leadership, we accelerate the adoption of our virtualized platform, Fluid Data, to redefine the value of enterprise storage for data centers and cloud computing.”

Compellent, founded in 2002, provides data storage solutions within a 35-country sales network. It provides data management features for enterprise and cloud-computing environments. It is among Minnesota's 70-largest public companies based on revenue, which totaled $125.3 million in 2009-up 38 percent from 2008.

Following reports about a possible takeover, Compellent's stock has soared-nearly doubling in price during the past two months.

Immediately after Dell's announcement last week, Compellent's stock was trading down about 14 percent to about $28.88 on Thursday.

During Monday morning trading, Compellent's stock was trading down about 3 percent to $27.85-10 cents above Dell's purchase price.

Dell's shares were also down about 3 percent during Monday morning trading, at $13.47. The company said that the deal, which it expects to close in early 2011, is expected to be accretive to its earnings during its 2012 fiscal year.