Dell piles on partners

This week’s Dell World conference is the first since CEO and founder, Michael Dell, took the company out of the hands of the world’s stock markets and back into private ownership. This has been widely recognised as a smart move that has allowed the company the freedom to radically re-engineer itself, and the first fruits of that process are now coming to the for.

One of the most significant changes is the emphasis the company is now placing on building large systems and services partnerships that give it a stronger position in the providing enterprise users with something closer to end-to-end business solutions.The company has, for many years, been one of the major sources of the hardware that powers cloud services delivery, but now it is pitching at providing more of the services delivery themselves.

That is, after all, where the real added value that enterprise users – and increasingly the extensive mid-range businesses market - can identify with will be found.   

Now it is focusing its attention on building up its Dell Cloud Partner Program to become as comprehensive a range of options as possible. As part of this plan, some major partnerships were announced at the event, including Google, Microsoft and Accenture.

With Google, Dell has announced plans to offer the Google Cloud Platform and its compute, storage and application services to developers and businesses worldwide. This will be available through the company’s Cloud Partner Program from next year. This combines Dell’s end-to-end open, scalable infrastructure, software and services with the added benefit of having Dell serve as the single-source supplier.

The pair plan to push cloud innovations into the market, making highly scalable cloud solutions easier to obtain and consume for customers of all sizes, and across all industries.

“Putting the power of cloud in our customers’ hands – and giving them the choice and flexibility to pursue the right cloud for their unique needs – will not only help individual businesses thrive, but collectively it will drive the whole technology industry forward to a new era of innovation”

The theThe Google Cloud Platform gives developers the flexibility to architect applications with both managed and unmanaged services that run on Google’s infrastructure. With access to Google Compute Engine (IaaS), App Engine (PaaS), storage and APIs, developers and business can easily deploy applications into a highly scalable public cloud environment for their specific needs.

The Dell Cloud Partner Program has been designed to give customers more choice and flexibility to select the public cloud partner, platform and model appropriate for their business needs. The Program complements Dell’s cloud focus areas of enabling private cloud, delivering multi-cloud management and supplying cloud builders.

Microsoft is, of course, already a long-term partner for Dell, but the pair will now be working together to push public cloud solutions that include Windows Azure and build on Dell’s current Windows Application Services capabilities.  This expands upon the alliance that provides Application Development Services on Windows Azure.

Dell will be acting as a single-source supplier for Azure-based system through the Dell Cloud Partner Program, which will be able to offer a high level of integration and support across existing Dell solutions and services. These include a complete portfolio of services to develop and manage next-generation, custom applications for Windows Azure, expert guidance in helping assess, build, operate and control cloud environments, and the ability to manage single or multiple public, private and hybrid clouds through one pane of glass with Dell Cloud Manager.

Users will also get direct support from a Dell salesperson to advise on the best purchasing, deployment and maintenance options to meet their needs, accounting for budget, workloads, current infrastructure, and use cases.

As unified cloud management is critical to supporting any cloud environment, Dell is also adding support for Windows Azure Compute in Dell Cloud Manager, on top of the already supported Windows Azure Storage. This brings the governance, business agility, and open approach of Dell Cloud Manager to Windows Azure users for both Compute and Storage, enabling them to benefit from increased security, automation, integration with leading configuration management and operational tools for orchestration, and cloud management.

Dell’s existing partnership with Accenture has now been expanded to provide cloud and security solutions, together with application management services, to mid-market businesses. It is four-year global go-to-market agreement to jointly develop and sell a new set of offerings designed to deliver improved enterprise efficiency, higher security, and better business outcomes.

Dell’s alliance with Microsoft is also a powerful synergy and something Accenture and Avanade can leverage for the benefit of our joint clients.”

The companies will work together to build, implement and manage datacentre solutions for mid-market and select enterprise customers who want to drive business innovation while controlling costs and reducing risk. The agreement will bring together Dell’s end-to-end portfolio of infrastructure, software, and services with Accenture’s capabilities as well as those of the Accenture/Microsoft joint venture, Avanade.

The pair have also signed a four-year agreement to develop the joint solutions that support Dell’s global market expansion. These include a private and public cloud ecosystem focused on Microsoft applications and developed with by Accenture and Avanade, Application Assured Platforms that combine infrastructure and application configurations with management software supporting standard business processes and mission critical applications, and security services that combine Dell SecureWorks’ information security services with Accenture and Avanade’s expertise in security consulting.

The three initial Dell/Accenture solutions will be available in North America in mid-2014 and available in multiple countries around the world in 2015.

The Dell Partner Program will also be adding CenturyLink’s new CenturyLink Cloud. This gives Dell customers access to a slate of public cloud services which can be deployed across CenturyLink’s global datacentre footprint. In addition, customers gain the added benefit of having Dell serve as the single-source supplier.

“Our partnership with Dell allows businesses to run the simplest workload to the most complex, demanding application on public cloud environments with ease and confidence to quickly and consistently achieve measurable business results.”

Through this alliance, Dell customers will be able to benefit from CenturyLink Cloud’s compute, storage and networking services. Each service is accessible via web services API and in a unified management interface that includes significant automation and orchestration features specifically for CenturyLink Cloud. A PaaS offering based on Cloud Foundry and Iron Foundry is also available.