Dell is moving towards offering customers a "data centre in a box," rather than making them buy separate solutions.
During a discussion about small and medium businesses (SMBs) with two of Dell's executives, IT PRO learned the company is working on offering all the pieces an SMB would need in a data centre as a bundled solution.
"The direction we are going [is] verticals," said Gerry Kenny, medium enterprise marketing manager at Dell. "Companies can come to us with their problems and we can work out the solution for them... [then] present it in one box."
The company already has a number of demo racks it is taking round Europe to show people the idea and Kenny is confident it will prove popular.
"We found that prescribing to a configured solution [can be] too generic... or too specific to sell," he said. This way we can offer the [benefits] of an out-of-the-box solution [but] with customisation for a small business."
But with the current economic climate, would smaller companies be willing to invest?
Mark Smith, medium enterprise product manager at Dell, thinks they will but with a different attitude than during the boom.
"There is the feeling [with SMBs] that the market is tentatively going up," he said.
"But there is now caution with a [focus] on faster returns of investment than ever before [and] without the gung-ho attitude that 'we are through it' yet."
