The ‘New Dell’ Talks Public Sector Problems And HP’s Fall

Dell is trying to supply the whole data centre stack and it’s made some major acquisitions to get there. Are there any pieces of the jigsaw that you see as missing?
KJ: We’ve done 18 acquisitions over the last three years, which shows how committed we are to this space. You’ll continue to see us invest, first of all organically with our sales capability. We’ve invested in data centres all over the world. We’ll continue at looking in opening more.

From an inorganic position, you will continue to see us look at investments. We are not tied to one particular geography. What we are keen on is to make sure the solutions and the IP we acquire can be deployed globally because that is what our customers are asking for. You’ll see us invest in the companies that have the higher margin type offerings, like cloud.

Rival riling

HP, which is seen as your chief rival, is obviously having a bit of trouble. Has it surprised you the company still struggles, even though it won the 3PAR acquisition with you and it’s strategic refocus?
TS: We have a couple of differentiators against HP. One thing we refer to is the fact that we have an end-to-end solution, but ours is open, it’s based on open technology in every aspect and we partner significantly, either with software vendors or end user device vendors. We’ve got a much more flexible approach to the market, and possibly more future-proofed approach to the market.

The other thing is that Dell really does have some core expertise in certain areas, such as healthcare, financial services and education. That domain expertise has certainly differentiated us strongly in this country from HP on occasion.

KJ: Open, capable and affordable – that is our solution strategy. We’ve just released multi-vendor support so we can be very flexible with different technologies. Particularly in the services business that’s really, really important.

Talking of open standards, there has been a lot of talk around Hadoop and its big data capabilities. What did you make of HP’s pricey gamble on Autonomy when there were cheaper options on the table?
KJ: That was very interesting. When we think about our acquisition strategy, value for money is very important.

We’re really careful to make sure the technology that we acquire is going to have value for our shareholders and can be globally deployed. I think HP’s results speak for themselves.

So what can we expect from the new Dell in the future?
KJ: You will continue to see services and solutions be a bigger and bigger part of Dell. Hardware is not going to go away. We think end-to-end is really valuable.

Services and software is about 50 percent of our profits. You’ll continue to see that probably increase over time. Software definitely.

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