Dell and Microsoft: Better Together with Windows Server 2012

At Dell, we have a long history of listening to customers and partners, and recognize the importance of delivering end-to-end solutions that work “better together” for you. Better together applies not only to how our technologies work, but also to how we work with our partners.

Partner enablement is important to Dell's strategic growth, and our relationship with Microsoft, one of our most valued and long-standing partners, has continued for more than 25 years. Together, we offer customers innovative and feature-rich solutions that empower greater efficiency and productivity. Dell’s powerful new server, networking and storage technologies, specialized software and global services expertise are unified to deliver finely honed options for customers of all sizes.

This week, Microsoft is hosting its Worldwide Partner Conference and provided a preview of Windows Server 2012. Dell is poised to execute on Server 2012, which represents a big opportunity for our customers and partners as an important enabler to Dell’s end-to-end strategy and the solutions we provide with end-point technologies like Dell Wyse. Dell PowerEdge servers will support this new operating system when the full version is released.

Dell engineering teams have performed extensive testing of the new OS features on our platforms and have come up with an exclusive Dell Early Adopter Guide for Microsoft Windows Server to provide a comprehensive understanding of Dell’s hardware and OpenManage support, and recommended installation methods.

In fact, Dell this week releases a Desktop Virtualization Solutions Reference Architecture (RA) for Windows Server 2012. In addition, Dell also makes available datacenter hardware components based on this RA that supports desktop virtualization and terminal services delivered by Windows Server 2012. The RA and related components are qualified to work with RemoteFX-certified Dell Wyse end points.  This is another example of Dell and Microsoft working together to accelerate industry adoption of virtualized computing solutions for customers. For more insight on this, take a look at Nicolas Cuendet’s post where he discusses the RA in detail. Eric Selken discusses how the RA simplifies implementing Microsoft’s VDI solutions with Dell hardware.

Windows Server 2012 also provides technology benefits and opportunities for Dell PartnerDirect channel partners to help their customers grow their business into the next decade. Through this Dell program, channel partners may focus their sales on businesses of every size running Windows Server 2003 as well as non-Microsoft operating systems. Since the support for Windows 2003 ends in 2015, this is the ideal time for channel partners to start implementing the OS transition for their customers. And, Dell and Microsoft have collaborated to deliver training and sales tools to enable our partners to accelerate their services revenue.

Dell’s presence at WPC reflects our continued strong partnership with Microsoft and how we’re working better together.

About the Author: Brad Anderson