Dell EMC World 2017: Why There’s No Stopping The Dell Technologies Juggernaut

Today is the last day of Dell EMC World 2017 in Las Vegas and, after three packed days of keynote speeches, press briefings and customer case studies, I’ve been trying to think of a word to describe the new conglomerate of companies that is Dell Technologies.

So far ‘juggernaut’ has felt like the best fit, although ‘powerhouse’ has also come to mind and someone else referred to it as a ‘beast’ the other day, which, apart from the menacing undertone, felt quite apt.

The point I’m trying to make is that trying to get your head around the breadth of Dell Technologies is a seriously complex task. The sheer scale of products and services on offer from the companies under its umbrella is staggering, which has been reflected this week in the size of the conference, the first time the whole ‘family’ has been in one place.

And the industry has certainly responded: Over 13,500 attendees from 122 countries and 3,000 different companies, more than 100 partners and 300 press and analysts.

When we break down that family the numbers get even more impressive. Dell Technologies, which for reporting purposes consists of Dell and Dell EMC, generated revenues of $61.6 billion for the 2017 fiscal year, ranking it as the ninth biggest information technology company by revenue behind the likes of Apple, Samsung and Amazon.

The other major contributor is cloud virtualisation software and services firm VMware, which generated over $7 billion in revenues for the financial year 2016, an eight percent increase from 2015.

Then we have data security company SecureWorks, which expects revenue in 2017 to be around $423 million, provider of cloud management software Virtustream is currently hitting nearly $100 million in quarterly revenue and cyber security business RSA Security’s revenue for 2016 was well over the $500 million mark.

Finally, booked revenue for cloud software subsidiary Pivotal, of which Dell Technologies owns just over 50 percent, grew 130 percent last year to $270 million and the company is now valued at more than $3 billion.

That’s clearly an impressive set of numbers, but the feeling I’ve got from this week is that it’s not so much about the financials, rather how the company is positioning itself in the market.

One of the main reasons this conference generated so much interest was because it really marked the first time that Michael Dell and his senior leadership team would be able to clearly lay out the company’s future strategy, with the potentially sticky early period following the EMC acquisition now done and dusted.

And, having spent the last few days hearing from multiple senior figures, including plenty of face-time from Michael Dell himself, its clear that Dell Technologies has its sights set on becoming the leading player in enterprise IT and, barring any major setbacks, it’s hard to see how anyone else will be able to stop this from happening.

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