Late to the Party

3:30 PM -- Inspiration or desperation?

It's a reasonable question, as Dell plunges into the data center services market with its Cloud Computing service. (See Dell Intros Data Center.)

The vendor will be offering servers, storage, and networking gear, plus all the management and security features your average very-high-end customer could want.

Dell, still on the rebound from its CEO departure, an accounting investigation, lost marketshare, and soft earnings, is being lauded for this services-based initiative. I'm not exactly sure why, unless it's because Dell has little to lose and a whole lot to gain in this market.

And the data center services sector is a crowded field. Amazon.com has its S3 services. (See Amazon Takes Aim at Hosted Storage and SmugMug.) Sun's Sun Grid offers infrastructure, processing power, and security on demand. (See Sun Grid Weathers DOS Attack.) EMC, which has been ramping up its own services arm, said last month that it will work more closely with its RSA division to add security features to its service menu. (See So Long, Security Silos .)Dell isn't diving into services because of high demand (just ask its competitors). As any MBA dropout knows, services, particularly IT services, have vastly better margins than hardware.

So Dell's neither at an advantage nor a disadvantage here... It's simply a bit late to the services party.

Terry Sweeney, Editor in Chief, Byte and Switch