Dell plans to set up a global solutions centre in Dubai, which will serve as hub for the Middle East and Africa. This is part of the company’s recently announced plans to invest $1 billion over the fiscal year 2012 to bolster its data storage products to business customers, with the money going toward the research of technologies such as cloud computing and virtualisation, along with the development on new data centres.
“For cloud computing, the major obstacle to adoption is that organisations don’t feel comfortable about sending data out of their national boundaries. This is why we are building in-country, in-region data centres for cloud computing, and Dubai is one of the locations on the roadmap,” says Basil Ayass, Enterprise Product Manager, Dell Middle East.
Dell plans to set up 22 such global solutions centres all over the world over the next 18 months. “The creation of a network of global centres is meant to help our customers architect, validate and build the enterprise right from the data centre to the edge of the network,” adds Ayass.
Dell’s focus in the past year was building out its enterprise product and service businesses, with the “epicentre” of the company shifting away from PCs and toward the enterprise, especially toward products for the data centre.
Dell is growing its enterprise business through acquisitions that strengthen its hardware, software and services offerings. “We have been acquiring companies in the past couple of years to build our enterprise solutions portfolio, and we are significantly expanding our service capabilities,” says Ayass.
During the Q4, revenue for Dell’s Large Enterprise division was $4.7 billion, growing by 12 percent from a year ago, driven by a strong demand for PC and server products. Revenue for the Small and Medium Business division grew year over year by 12 percent to $3.7 billion.
Overall server and networking revenue for the company was $2.09 billion, growing by 16 percent. The company’s desktop and mobility revenue — which counts laptop sales — both grew by 4 percent.
