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Dell's New Software Division - Great News for Dell

Ominous Portents for HP
By Hollis Tibbetts
Article Rating:
February 6, 2012 05:30 AM EST
Reads:
 4,095

Dell is making some exciting waves in the "solutions" business. Building on the momentum as a result of the acquisition of Perot Systems some years ago and a buying spree where they acquired a host of best-of-breed software solutions such as Boomi (Cloud-based Integration Platform), Dell has just announced a newly created Software Division and has appointed veteran John Swainson as president, reporting to Michael Dell.

Swainson led IBM's huge software business until 2005 and was CEO of CA Technologies from 2005 to 2009. On the heels of the appointment of Steve Felice as Chief Commercial Officer, this represents a very promising strategic move for Dell.

While traditional rival HP is busy wallowing in hardware, software, services and Cloud confusion - seemingly unable to make headway on any of those fronts - Dell is very quickly preparing itself to go up against Oracle and IBM - where Swainson spent 26 years ultimately running Big Blue's software business. Swainson helped IBM launch its Application and Middleware division, which developed and brought to market key products such as WebSphere.

Why does this portend ominous events for HP? There's room for Dell or HP to grow into a strategic platform (Hardware + services + software + Cloud) vendor - but not both. While HP's various divisions like Cloud wander around in the fog of confusion, and HP "corporate" is out to lunch, Dell is busy focusing on where the action is.

HP is busy wandering around in the fog, mistaking it for "Cloud." It's not that Dell is going to "take out HP" - far from it. HP is not a worthy target.

IBM and Oracle (and to some extent even SAP) are the worthy targets.

HP will simply get taken down as a result of self-inflicted wounds and collateral damage faced from Dell, IBM, Oracle and mega-vendors like SAP.

This will be an exciting year in the SaaS and Cloud software space as a result of these Dell announcements.

If you think Dell isn't a software vendor, you're dead wrong. Dell "gets it" - SaaS, Software & Cloud. I look forward to having a lot to write about this coming year.

Published February 6, 2012 – Reads 4,095
Copyright © 2012 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Hollis Tibbetts

Hollis has established himself as a successful software marketing and technology expert. His various strategy, marketing and technology articles are read nearly 50,000 times a month. He is currently Director for Software Strategy in the Mergers & Acquisitions organization of Dell, Inc.

Hollis has developed substantial expertise in middleware, SaaS, Cloud, data management and distributed application technologies, with over 20 years experience in marketing, technical, product management, product marketing and business development roles at leading companies in such as Pervasive, Aruna (acquired by Progress Software), Sybase (now SAP), webMethods (now Software AG), M7 Corporation (acquired by BEA/Oracle), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette) and KIVA Software (acquired by Netscape). He has established himself as an industry expert, having authored a large number of technology white papers, as well as published media articles and book contributions.

Hollis is a regularly featured blogger at ebizQ, a venue focused on enterprise technologies, with over 100,000 subscribers. He is also a featured author on Social Media Today "The World's Best Thinkers on Social Media", and maintains a blog focused on creating great software: Software Marketing 2011.
He tweets actively as @SoftwareHollis

Additional information is available at HollisTibbetts.com