Dell to continue transformation from hardware to services

Dell is set to continue its transition from a pure-play hardware provider to a services-oriented company, flagging further acquisitions and developing ‘solutions’ geared specifically for medium enterprises.

The company has made a total of 11 acquisitions in the past two years including the likes of Compellent, KACE, Boomi and Force10 Networks, and has plans to continue at the rate of about eight acquisitions per year. The acquisitions will be specifically in the public sector and healthcare in an effort to add to its storage and services business.

Speaking to Computerworld Australia, Dell global vice president for consumer, small and medium business services and solutions, Tim Griffin, said the company was no longer focused on software and hardware.

“We traditionally had a legacy of being hardware orientated and as we’ve put forward a plan to transform our organisation and articulated that we’re going to do much of that through acquisition, we started to make these acquisitions where we’re buying strategic assets that aren’t necessarily huge but are giving us significant IP,” he said.

According to Griffin, many medium-sized businesses were struggling with issues such as the consumerisation of IT, the virtualisation of IT and day-to-day infrastructure management.

“In the medium space and obviously this translates into the large organisation space as well, they’re really hitting pain points around data and systems management so that’s where we’re focusing our attention.”

Medium-sized businesses are struggling to do more with less, Griffin said, and to “keep the lights on” in a more cost-effective way as opposed to meeting the strategic challenges of the business in order for it to grow.

“What we’re doing as opposed to scale down corporate solutions to fit the medium size business, is building out medium solutions that will scale up which is a different way of approaching it to cutting and slicing a large corporate solution and to fit it into an organisation.”

Follow Chloe Herrick on Twitter: @chloe_CW

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