John - I predicted at the time of CPQ's announcement that DELL would offer the Unisys system at some point. DELL's server initiative has been stalled in the high end by their lack of enterprise level service, by the lack of a sales force that can sell at that level, and by their weaker management suite. They need to change their business model to move in that direction, and we are beginning to see some movement which would eventually support high end sales.
But even with their recent moves, DELL is not credible in that space yet. IBM, CPQ, and HP all have extensive experience in design, deployment and management of large systems, and the long term partnerships with consulting houses and enterprise suppliers which are a requirement for success in that space. They also have the account teams at the major companies who track where those companies are planning their IT spending, and influencing the architectural choices to favor their product lines.
DELL has none of that. I believe their 32 way offering is a "placeholder" and I think it is also a requirement for them to be a "datacenter" vendor with Microsoft.
I don't think CPQ will be very concerned about this move, but it is a step in the right direction for DELL. DELL will need to continue to invest in technology, partnerships and sales for years before they will see much benefit in their high end sales, but that is better than the alternative, which is the slow decay of their base PC business. |
