Throughout history the evolution of technologies has driven society forward. The first houses with indoor plumbing cost a fortune to outfit, limiting the benefits of sanitary living to the wealthiest. Over time technology advanced and today most people in the civilized world have sewage services and clean and safe hot and cold water on tap. In more recent years cell phone technology moved from an esoteric world of ivory tower businessmen slowly down to the point where it seems everyone has a mobile communication device with additional personal computing capabilities.
This trend is a fact of life: cutting edge technologies move through the evolution curve from costly proprietary platforms down to common commodity status available to all.
In the business of computer based solutions – capabilities like routing, communications, security, data storage, and information analysis (to name just a few) – the evolution of technology follows the same trends. The capabilities once only offered in extremely high cost proprietary enterprise systems available only to the largest companies and government agencies have shifted down the curve to become affordable and more commoditized for a larger audience of users. We in the OEM Solutions Group at Dell pay very close attention to technologies and applications as they move through this curve.
We follow technologies, like medical imaging solutions or VoIP management platforms, to see when they start sliding down from the proprietary technologies they often start off as. We have also discovered that many innovative solutions can start off in the common area and move into the more controlled and supportable sweet spot of value hardware with controlled lifecycles.
In order to compete effectively in the market, any solution must provide enough value to justify the cost, and the Dell OEM group is here to help make that a reality for our OEM customers. Do you see value in special use hardware? Is 100% commodity good for the end user? Let me know your thoughts.
Learn more about Dell OEM Solutions at www.dell.com/oem.