Michael Dell runs on big ideas, the kinds of ideas that not only boost business, but change lives and improve the way the world works.
From ushering in a new era of hybrid work, to helping organizations take control of their multicloud strategies and put the vast amounts of data they generate to good use, Dell’s vision is to bring big ideas to light.
At Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas Monday, Dell took the cover off some of the company’s latest thinking, including its ideas around the role of AI. The company’s strength, scale and dedication to simplicity results in solutions designed to help customers solve their toughest business and IT challenges and seize their biggest opportunities while promoting sustainability and security.
“Increasingly, technology is at the center of all significant opportunities in every domain,” Dell said.
To those ends, Dell Technologies Co-COO Chuck Whitten Monday announced several new products, services and partnerships spanning multicloud, edge and client devices:
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- Collaborations with cloud partners Microsoft, Red Hat and VMware on Dell APEX Cloud Platforms, a portfolio of fully integrated turnkey systems that deliver consistent operations by extending cloud operating models to on-premises and edge environments.
- Bringing Project Alpine to life with Dell APEX Storage for Public Cloud, which brings advanced software capabilities of Dell’s industry-leading enterprise file and block storage to AWS and Microsoft Azure.
- Simplifying multicloud data mobility, storage and container management with Dell APEX Navigator for Multicloud Storage and Dell APEX Navigator for Kubernetes.
- The introduction of Dell APEX Compute to deliver scalable, secure bare metal compute resources available via a predictable, monthly subscription.
- Cloud experience for client devices with Dell APEX PCaaS, which helps companies simplify IT and deploy the latest client technology with predictable costs while freeing up capital to invest in modern employee experiences.
- A new, multifaceted relationship with Databricks to connect on-premises data in Dell’s industry-leading enterprise storage portfolio with the Databricks Lakehouse Platform.
“We stood here last year and committed to taking on the problems of multicloud,” Whitten said. “I’m incredibly proud of our team and our rate of innovation. From storage to data protection to client to compute, Dell APEX is now the world’s most comprehensive as-a-Service and multicloud portfolio.”
In a pre-recorded conversation with Dell, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella reinforced Dell’s message that customers want a certain seamlessness across edge, public and private cloud environments.
The two CEOs also compared the current state of AI to the birth of the PC. “This generation of AI,” Nadella said, “is a copilot whether you’re writing code, or a document, or designing something.” He reinforced AI’s potential to “remove drudgery and improve the flow and creativity of work,” whether it’s in sales, marketing, finance, or any other area.
Dell’s vision for AI includes organizations making better decisions and becoming more productive as long as AI models “reflect our human values.” He said he’s optimistic about humankind’s longstanding ability to manage the risks associated with new technologies.
Ideally, “enterprises will be able to train specific AI models securely to drive productivity and efficiency,” Dell said. Organizations will be able to reimagine themselves and what they can become with the power AI is unleashing. “If you’re not ready,” he said, “you’re already behind.”
These kinds of big ideas help move Dell beyond simply meeting customers’ technical requirements, and customers Hyundai and CVS Health joined Dell and Whitten on stage and via video to discuss how they’ve reached ambitious goals like modernized manufacturing processes and improving access to health care by bringing Dell into their big-picture thinking.
Similarly, the makers of the Avatar movie franchise said it wasn’t just the quality of the technology Dell offers that helped make the ambitious movies a reality, but the fact that Dell’s people “understood our goals and objectives and wanted to work with us,” said producer Jon Landau.
From climate change to access to health care to education, Dell is focused on being an indispensable partner to organizations that also have big ideas about improving life for humankind.
Whitten highlighted a partnership with UNICEF and Giga that aims to connect every school around the globe to the internet by 2030.
“This is really the promise of technology,” Dell said. “To solve the unsolved problems, to drive innovation and ultimately to make a positive and constructive change in the world with big ideas that can make a difference… the ideas that are still waiting in the minds of children that are experiencing technology and productivity for the first time.”
