Dell is Facing Challenges in the Cloud

The schedule announced last year by Dell regarding their plans to launch Cloud-based app services was deemed too aggressive by experts, and right now it looks like said experts were right, as Dell is encountering unexpected delays with their planned roll outs.

One of the key plans worth noting is Dell’s online analytics service, which Dell planned to launch last August for small and medium sized businesses, but now the launch is pushed back to early next year. Dell reps state that similar to any development project, their own analytics service can take longer than expected.

Dell was also planning to launch their own PaaS offering, which is based on Microsoft’s Azure platform, but last Friday, a Dell rep announced that the company no longer has a specific delivery date for their Platform as a Service offering.

The glut of delays are a major setback for Dell, considering that the company is trying to fast track their plans of moving slightly away from being too dependent on PCs via ventures into the more lucrative services and software sector. Fortunately for Dell, moving to the cloud can be a slow process for a lot of companies, so their delay may actually let them enter the market exactly when a large number of companies are looking at solutions.

Dell’s plan to expand into the software market is aided by a string of acquisitions made in the past year, which analysts posit to be the reason for the delay, in the sense that the company may be rethinking their SaaS strategy instead of the planned PaaS offering.

It doesn’t have to be an Either/Or situation anyway, since the analytics service can offer “cross-app” analytics, which means users will be able to migrate data from one or more apps to a Data warehouse that Dell hosts for them via cloud.

For this purpose, Dell’s own Boomi integration is perfect, as it has the ability to tie together cloud, on-premise and custom built apps using a mix of in house and open source technology.

Dell already has some cloud-based offerings today, including an IaaS offering. They also have the hosted Salesforce.com services, as well as several e-documents and e-signature services. Dell’s plans is to expand their offerings via their partners, but they have to start by offering said applications in developing markets first, rather than the US and Europe.

Developing countries are ripe for cloud services since a lot of small businesses in there cannot afford to build their own infrastructure, making them the perfect customers for cloud services. A Dell rep states that they are currently trying to figure out a way of entering said markets.