Dell unveils CIO Powerboard software, voices re-branding concerns

Dell has introduced new software solutions aimed at helping organisations simplify IT, mitigate risks, and accelerate business results, in response to customer needs.

In line with the company’s customer-inspired, end-to-end solutions vision, Dell unveiled Dell CIO Powerboard, a unified and open software interface that will allow organisations to maximise visibility and management across their preferred solution suites.

In addition, the company is introducing a mobile management solution that helps organisations secure and simplify BYOD, a security portal to help organisations monitor network security threats, and a data recovery appliance to ensure organisations stay up and running amid unexpected outages.

“Our acquisition, organic development and integration strategy has allowed us to make tremendous progress in delivering software solutions that bridge the gap between what businesses expect and what IT can deliver,” said John Swainson, President, Dell Software.

“The next frontier of innovation is in software, and our focus is on bringing that innovation to customers with software solutions that are easy to access and simple to deploy and manage.”

CIO Powerboard is an integration of its Dell Quest, KACE, SonicWALL and AppAssure solutions, all brought together by Dell Boomi. This game-changing proposition aims to enable CIOs, IT admins and Dell sellers and partners a simplified look across their IT environments, including the services and managed resources throughout the enterprise to drive improved business results.

CIOs need an end-to-end view of their organisation’s critical applications to better leverage IT skills and drive total cost of ownership, Swainson said.

IT admins need powerful products with the ability to contribute context to the network events affecting productivity and Dell’s sellers and partners need to understand how individual products in the portfolio come together to contribute to the overall solution. The new Dell CIO Powerboard will help organisations improve the integrity of data across their systems within the environment by creating a normalised view and source of ‘truth.’

Dell has put a lot of emphasis on its software division at DellWorld this week. The company believes that it has a major branding issue when it comes to marketing itself as more than just a PC company.

“It’s similar to what IBM went through a couple of decades ago,” Swainson told CNME.

“If we can rebrand ourselves as a full end-to-end services company, as well as software and product provider and SaaS provider, then we’ll be where we want to be.

“We have big plans for our software division, if we’re making 25% of our profit through software in a few years time, that will be seen as a success.”

Joe Lipscombe is reporting from DellWorld, Austin,Texas. For live updates follow @Computernewsme