Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) shares climbed as much as 7.7 percent today after The Information reported that private equity groups are considering buying the company.

The publication claims KKR, Apollo Global Management, and Carlyle Group are among the interested groups.

Such a deal would be pricey, obviously. HPE's market capitalization is around $35 billion.

Reuters had a different take. The news service reported today that buyout firms are only considering chunks of HPE — $6 billion to $8 billion worth of software assets that the company is considering divesting.

If HPE is tempted to go private, it might be using Dell as a model. Founder Michael Dell took the company private and underwent a restructuring without having to give quarterly reports to Wall Street. Dell got to rebuild in peace, and now it's about to own EMC.

HPE is still remodeling after its split from what's now called HP Inc. Among its latest moves was a deal in May to sell the massive Enterprise Services business to CSC. They'll likely be working on that into the first quarter of 2017.

HPE shares ended the day up 3.5 percent at $21.02.