Tom Joyce, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) global corporate development senior vice president, and a key player in a number of the vendor’s acquisitions, reportedly has exited for Dell’s software group.

The six-year HP veteran, who is said to have shepherded the vendor’s $2.7 billion deal last month to acquire networking provider Aruba Networks (ARUN) and its buyouts of Voltage Security and software-defined networking vendor ConteXtream, will join Dell’s Enterprise Solutions group headed by Dell chief commercial officer Marius Haas, CRN reported.

Joyce also played a role in HP divestitures such as the recent sale of 51 percent of its H3C Technologies China networking unit to Tsinghua Holdings for $2.3 billion and the sale of photo sharing site Snapfish. He is credited with launching HP Ventures.

His departure comes some six months ahead of HP’s target date to complete the split of its PC/printer unit from its enterprise business. HP previously has indicated the enterprise operation likely will be a player in strategic acquisitions.

In his HP tenure, Joyce also served as Converged Systems senior vice president and general manager, and Strategy, Marketing and Operations vice president. Prior to joining HP, Joyce served as Akorri chief executive after a 10-year stint at storage giant EMC (EMC) in a variety of executive roles.

Joyce’s hiring appears tied to Dell’s strategy to boost its position among enterprise accounts and partners selling to large businesses. In March, Dell hired Rory Read, the former AMD (AMD) chief executive, as its new global sales president and chief operating officer (COO), and landed Paul Perez, Cisco’s (CSCO) former Computing Systems Product Group vice president and general manager, as its new Enterprise Group chief technology officer (CTO).

Dell chairman and chief executive Michael Dell said last month the vendor is looking to staff up worldwide by the “thousands,” hiring in hardware and software development and engineering.