IT Life: Don’t Be A Supervillain!

Dominique Vanhamme is Dell’s head of networking in EMEA. He’s a fan of cyberpunk novels and the cloud, and doesn’t like it when people use their tech power for bad.

What has been your favourite project so far?
I’d have to choose this year’s project of setting out to improve Dell Networking’s market share position and succeeding by now ranking third. It’s a project I was able to work on from many different fronts, from marketing and sales to new capabilities, battling tough timelines and it’s been a real achievement on both a personal and professional level.

Getting Gigabit LANs started

What tech were you involved with ten years ago?
Ten years ago, I was involved in a broad range of Enterprise and Carrier Infrastructure technologies. To give you an idea, my work ranged from video surveillance for ATM/IP and network management to designing 1GE LANS on the Enterprise side to focusing on metro optical networks using DWDM and IP overlays and IAD access devices for voice and data services.

What tech do you expect to be using in ten years’ time?
Immersive 3D browsing! We have already achieved the basic immersive game experience today and the next step is simply to increase the ability to manage more data for an increasing number of applications by blending gaming technology with every day technology.

Who’s your tech hero?
A visionary author named William Gibson is my “21st century Jules Verne”. In his books, Gibson predicted the explosion of the web, video gaming, reality TV and so on. It was his first book back in 1987 that got me into the ICT industry while I was studying to be an engineer in material science.

Who’s your tech villain?
My villain would be anyone who models themselves after Marvel Comics’ Dr Doom in their pursuit of technology for world domination.

What’s your favourite technology ever made? Which do you use most?
As an end-user, my favourite is touch screen technology. Remembering the days when we didn’t call them smartphones but ‘handheld’, it’s amazing to see how this technology has progressed to allow so many applications to run on portable and wearable devices. Beyond my Dell XPS13, my most used piece of technology is my tablet.

What is your budget outlook going forward? Flat? Growing?
Definitely growing! Dell is now in its 10th quarter of consecutive growth and it is continuing to be fuelled by innovative designs and unique solutions.

Apart from your own, which company do you admire most and why?
At the moment, the company I admire most is VMware. It’s managed to capture virtualisation trends and bring them time and time again to new technology areas. Overall though, I’ve always found the story of Redback Networks to be a text-book case of success. Redback created a market segment in ICT, with IP-based services aggregation, by itself and managed to dominate that sector for a long time.

Need to be agile

What’s the greatest challenge for an IT company/department today?
With the explosion of mobile apps, the need for an agile infrastructure and the trend of convergence, the greatest challenge is one of knowledge management. ICT capabilities need to be managed skilfully to blend seamlessly with internal and external business knowledge to achieve the greatest results.

To Cloud or not to Cloud?
Cloud – always. For me, cloud is the natural evolution of ICT. From the days of centralised mainframe application and computing to the Internet, cloud is the natural progression to serve our need to store data effectively across multiple platforms and locations.

What did you want to be when you were a child?
As a child, I wanted to be an architect and design things like bridges, cathedrals and museums. I was fascinated by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco – six lanes of cars and 200m of suspended cable, all in Art Deco style! I consider myself lucky that designing and building is a part of what I do today, even if it is new business lines and capabilities rather than in wood or concrete.

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