Dell EMC World 2017 is set to be something of landmark event for the company. While it's technically the second annual conference following the two companies' mega-merger last year, this year's event (taking the slot previously occupied by EMC's annual shindig in Vegas) is the first example of what we can expect from the firm going forward.
The convention itself is set to be a truly mammoth affair after all, the company now has countless sub-divisions and spans virtually every area of the tech industry, from client devices to bare-metal hardware, and from cloud computing to intelligent analytics. I'm expecting vendors, clients and customers of every size and stripe to put in an appearance.
In terms of what we'll actually see, it looks like hardware will be on the menu; there have been rumours of new PowerEdge and Isilon servers floating around for some time now, as well as potentially more announcements surrounding the company's converged platforms strategy.
Security is guaranteed to be a major issue, too. It's brought up at every tech conference, of course, but it seems like not a week goes by without some kind of major security breach or hack making headlines and Dell Technologies (Dell EMC's parent company) would be foolish not to use this to its advantage.
Another common trend that's likely to see a lot of discussion is digital transformation. Dell Technologies is involved in virtually every element of the digital transformation journey, whether it's mobile devices and cloud solutions to enable agile working, data analytics and IoT technology to take advantage of the Big Data boom or the new and emerging fields like VR and AI.
Finally, the many and various forms of cloud computing are expected to be a lynchpin of Dell EMC's strategy once again. Specifically, signs point to the company pulling together its various newly-acquired divisions to offer a greater breadth of end-to-end solutions, such as the launch of a new platform to help companies spin up hybrid clouds on Azure Stack.
What with the numerous product announcements, industry trend discussions and appearances from partners, I'm expecting Dell EMC World 2017 to be a pretty full-on event. Despite the chaos, however, IT Pro will be on the ground bringing you all the news from the event.
