The “New” Dell: Reality or Positioning?

For a variety of reasons, Dell has been seen as a relatively “quiet” firm serving and enabling strategic enterprise IT. The company has been re-inventing itself rather significantly over the past few years, but is rarely one of the first names in the discussions around enterprise IT strategy, stacks, and Cloud.

This week, Saugatuck subscription research clients get a comprehensive look at how and why Dell has been rebuilding and growing, and increasing profitability, while evolving its business model beyond the low-cost, consumer PC space where it began. Key points include the following:

Dell has transformed itself through organic and inorganic growth and through realigning its portfolio of partner relationships.
Dell’s growth strategy is built of equal parts end-user solutions and enterprise solutions and services, with a focus on the mid-market that can extend to larger enterprises.
Dell’s future is to become an end-to-end, full-line solutions provider primarily focused on the midmarket but capable of scaling its offerings up and down to address a very broad spectrum of enterprises, which increasingly will include emerging markets. Today, Dell can serve as the “CIO as a Service,” providing a full range of solutions for the midmarket and below. Tomorrow, Dell’s target will be extended to the mid-market and above with an emphasis on capturing mind share and brand loyalty in emerging markets.

Note: Ongoing Saugatuck subscription clients can access this premium research piece (1067MKT) by clicking here, and inputting your ID and password.

Mike West

Michael West is Vice President with Saugatuck Technology. His areas of research and consulting expertise include Cloud Computing, “Enterprise Ready” SaaS, ISVs in transition to SaaS, Cloud Development platforms, SaaS Integration, Social Computing platforms, and GRC. In 2000, Mr. West joined Saugatuck as an early co-founder after leaving Gartner, Inc., where he served as Vice President and Research Director. In 2004-5, Mr. West spent a year in Washington, D.C. at the Corporate Executive Board as Practice Manager of the Information Risk Executive Council, before returning to work at Saugatuck and re-focusing his interests on Software-as-a-Service and Cloud platforms. Mr. West has over twenty years experience in Information Technology at John Hancock, Fidelity Investments, Apple Computer, and Gartner. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and other industry events on a wide range of topics concerning technology and business strategy. He has written and presented research on information management, data administration, applications development, application integration, object technology, client/server architectures, graphical user interface and usability strategies, web site development and Internet applications, network computing, electronic commerce, portals, hubs and communities. Mr. West has an A.B. from Williams College , M.A. from Johns Hopkins University and M.B.A. from the Boston College Graduate School of Management. He has taught IT Strategies in M.B.A. programs at the Boston College Graduate School of Management and at the Haas School of the University of California at Berkeley.

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