Dell Technologies on Friday confirmed that it is considering a series of options, combining with VMware or a public offering of Dell.
CNBC reported earlier this week that Dell Technologies could emerge as a public company through a reverse-merger with VMware, the $50 billion cloud computing company it already controls.
Dell did not provide any details about how a deal with VMware would be structure and reiterated in the statement that "nothing has been decided and alternatives are just being considered at this stage."
VMware, which saw its shares climb about 1 percent in pre-market trading on this news, issued its own statement Friday morning but didn't delve into any details about a potential deal with Dell.
"Dell has been a tremendous partner since it became our majority owner and as we've accelerated our growth," said VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, in the statement. "We look forward to Dell's continued support as we work to execute our growth plans in the years ahead."
VMware was seen as the crown jewel in 2015 when Dell acquired EMC for $67 billion. That gave Dell 80 percent of VMware, which was an early pioneer in a technology called virtualization. That process gave companies a way to run the large computers in their data centers more efficiently by packing multiple "virtual" computers on a single piece of hardware.