Dell, the world's third-largest maker of personal computers, has announced plans to buy data storage company EMC for $67 billion in cash and stock--the largest technology deal on record.

Dell will make the purchase with MSD Partners and Silver Lake.

"The combination of Dell and EMC creates an enterprise solutions powerhouse bringing our customers industry leading innovation across their entire technology environment," according to a Dell release about the deal. "Our new company will be exceptionally well-positioned for growth in the most strategic areas of next generation IT including digital transformation, software-defineddata center, converged infrastructure, hybrid cloud, mobile and security."

EMC owns the software-development company Pivotal and enterprise-security firm RSA, as well as 80 percent of the virtualization company VMware. Due to slowing revenue and a declining stock price, some investors had called for a breakup of its businesses. The hedge fund Elliott Management, which owns a 2 percent stake in EMC, has publicly pressured the company to spin off VMware. Under the deal, VMware will remain a publicly-traded company.

The Wall Street Journal reported that EMC had started a strategic review of its business last year. In 2014, the company held talks with both Dell and Hewlett-Packard. The discussions with HP ended before the Palo Alto, Calif., company announced it was splitting its printer and PC businesses.

Market analysts have repeatedly downgraded EMC's stock over the last year, but EMC shares were at $33.15 representing a 19 percent premium over the previous trading day's closing price.