Written by Leslie Fleischmann, Global OEM Marketing Producer
Before the event even started, there was excitement in the air about the first-ever Dell World event.
It was truly an historical moment — not only for Dell but also for Dell OEM. We held our own first-ever Dell World event, which included an OEM-specific CTO Summit.
There were 2000 attendees who came in from all over to hear about what Dell is up to and where the company is headed. It was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how Dell is in the business of enabling the full potential of our customers and that today’s Dell is an end-to-end solutions company with more capabilities than ever before.
We had an exclusive, invitation-only, OEM-specific track comprised of 38 VPs of Engineering and CTOs of our OEM customers. The OEM CTO track was a chance for them to really hear how Dell is committed to the growth of their business and dedicated to providing products and services that drive innovation.
Unlocking Innovation for the Virtual Era: Dell World 2011
You could feel the excitement on the first day when Michael walked on stage to kick off the event. It made me proud to work for a company with such a passionate leader and excited to be part of something evolutionary. The feeling continued throughout the entire event. With every keynote speaker you could continue feel the eagerness about what’s next for Dell. These included:
Unlocking Opportunity through Innovation: Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO- Harnessing Technology to Innovate at Scale: Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer of the United States (2009-2011)
- The Business of Results: Cloud and IT Services Innovation: and IT Services Innovation: Steve Schuckenbrock President Dell Services
- The New IT: Paul Maritz, CEO VMware
- Supercharging productivity through Workforce Innovation: Steve Felice, President, Consumer, Small and Medium Business, Dell
- Windows Reimagined: Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft
- Driving the Data Center Innovation in the Virtual Era: Brad Anderson, Senior Vice President Enterprise Solutions Group, Dell
- The Evolution of Computing: Paul Otellini, CEO, Intel
- Accelerating Innovation in Pursuit of Your Organization’s Mission: Paul Bell, President, Public and Large Enterprise, Dell
The message was clear; this is a new Dell that more than ever is focused on delivering end-to-end solutions that relieve customer’s pain points. I am convinced that Dell is positioned to be a leader in innovation and highly capable of providing the end-to-end solutions that customers are looking for. As Michael said, “solutions and services together ensure customer success.”
Dell OEM CTO Summit: Dell World 2011
Let me start by saying how impressed I was with our speaker line up for the first-ever OEM CTO Summit. Josh Neland, our OEM Technology Strategist, did an excellent job of putting together an agenda that was both informative and stimulating. Our first day included exceptional speakers and topics from Dell’s Office of the CTO:
Emergence of Mobility and Connected Devices: , Executive Director, Enterprise Software Technology, Office of the CTO
Computing Density and Processor Choices: Robert Hormuth, Director, Server Architecture, Office of the CTO
Dealing with Data Explosion: Steve Luning, VP/Fellow, Networked Storage & Intelligent Data Management, Office of the CTO
Dell’s Public Cloud, Logan McLeod: Director of Strategy for Public Cloud Services, Office of the CTO
Cloud Integration Pain Points: Rick Nucci, Boomi CTO
I have to say, though, that for me the highlight of the day was Michael Dell coming in to make a special appearance just for our OEM customers. It was good to hear from Michael about Dell’s strategy to provide solutions that make it easy to put all of this technology to work and how working together in a much deeper and richer engagement, with tight alignment to the future technology, will benefit your business. He answered some really good questions from customers and I came away with even more of an assurance of Dells commitment to the OEM Business.
Day two of the CTO summit was a bit shorter but packed just as big of a punch. We had three key speakers that really blew it out of the water talking about Dell’s advanced capabilities, outside of basic PCs, Servers, Storage and Cloud:really good questions from customers and I came away with even more of an assurance of Dells commitment to the OEM Business.
- How Technology Changes Cause Business Changes: Matt Wolken, Dell Corporate Strategy
- Security as a Service: Jon Ramsey, Executive Director of Counter Threat Unit
- Monitoring Highly Distributed Systems: Vikram Pillai, Distinguished Engineer
From how to be more responsive with cloud technologies, to the reality of security and how the bad guys are using the newest technologies to be more efficient, you were left with good insight into how to use technology to address business problems. We also talked about how to remotely manage 10s of 1000s of systems with a minimal onsite presence and addressing the operational nightmare of maintaining a large install base.
It was a an educational event full of new ideas and new ways to look at common business problems. It brought back my passion for innovation and gave good insights into what I can being, here at Dell, to help solve customers’ problems and provide solutions that matter. I can only imagine what customers got out of it and excited to see the ways we will work together going forward. To sum it up, I will use our tag line and say OEM Solutions and Dell enable customers the power to do more.
If you are interested in hearing more or getting on the list for next year’s event, please send an email to Dell_OEM_Marketing@dell.com.