Day 2 of Dell’s analyst event and an SMB perspective from IDC’s Ray Boggs

May 5, 2011

Yesterday was day two of Dell’s two-day industry analyst summit which was held at the W hotel in Austin Texas.  The event brought together over 100 analysts from around the world to hear to about the company’s strategy and vision from Dell’s top execs.

The second day kicked off with a presentation by the President of Dell Services, Steve Schuckenbrock which was then followed by a panel moderated by Michael Dell himself.  The panel that Michael moderated was made up of the heads of four software companies Dell has recently acquired: Boomi, SecureWorks, KACE and Compellent.  The general sessions then concluded with a tag-team presentation by Dell’s CMO Karen Quintos and Andy Lark, VP of global marketing for Public and Large Enterprise.  Karen and Andy’s presentation covered Dell’s brand efforts and marketing initiatives in 2011.

Beyond the general sessions

After the general sessions, the rest of the afternoon featured a series of smaller breakout sessions as well as packed agenda of 1:1’s with analysts and Dell execs.  Between his one one-on-one’s I was able to grab some time with analyst Ray Boggs, VP of IDC‘s SMB and Home office research and get his take on the event:

Some of the ground Ray covers:

  • What were Ray’s expectations coming into the event and to what extent did Dell meet or miss those expectations
  • The key role the medium sized company plays in Dell’s strategy
  • Dell doubling down on acquisitions and R&D
  • What are Ray’s clients asking him about Dell
  • What would Ray like to see from Dell going forward

Extra-credit reading:

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Dell’s Analyst Event – Summary of day 1 and feedback from Redmonk’s Michael Cote

May 3, 2011

Today at the W hotel in Austin, Dell held its bi-annual analyst summit.  Today’s event is the third in a series of analyst functions organized around the theme “Services and Solutions for the Virtual Era.”  The first event was held in San Francisco in March of last year and the second came six months later in Boston.

Today’s program

Today’s event was broken into three sections.  The first section featured presentations by

  • Karen Quintos, SVP and CMO
  • Dave Johnston, SVP Corporate Strategy
  • Brian Gladden, CFO
  • Steve Felice, President, Consumer, Small and Medium Business
  • Paul Bell, President, Public and Large enterprise

In the case of Steve and Paul they also each featured a couple of customers on stage.

The second section was a solutions panel moderated by Brad Anderson, SVP of Enterprise solutions and featured members of his team who manage strategy, storage, networking and computing platforms.  The final section of the day was also a panel.  This featured the GM of Dell China, the head of Dell’s OEM business, Dell’s GM of Public and Large Enterprise in Europe, Middle East and Africa, the head of Dell Channels and the GM of Dell Small and Medium business solutions.

How did we do?

To see how the event came across, I grabbed some time with Redmonk analyst Michael Cote and we sat down for a chat (I’m hoping to grab more analyst  feedback at day two tomorrow):

Some of the ground Michael covers:

  • What his clients ask him about Dell and what, as a result was he looking for today
  • Dell’s focus on solutions and de-emphasis on technology
  • Is Dell putting on its big boy pants?
  • The value of expanding on Dell’s success in select verticals

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

A Quick look at Dell’s Analyst Summit

October 29, 2010

Earlier this week Dell held an industry analyst summit in Boston.  The event, “Dell Services and Solutions for the Virtual Era” was attended by analysts from around the world and was a follow-on to the event Dell held in San Francisco back in March.

Please take your seats, the summit is about to begin.

What went on

The two-day event featured presentations from Dell’s senior leadership, customer and partner panels, break out sessions and 1:1’s between analysts and Dell subject matter experts.  The first day also culminated with a solutions expo and dinner held at the very cool Institute of Contemporary Art.

What were the key messages?

The high-level messages that Dell kept reiterating were:

  • We are executing on our strategy of delivering solutions that are open, capable and affordable which ultimately give our customers the power to do more.
  • We are undergoing a fundamental change in the way we’re approaching our customers. We are moving away from transactional selling motions toward a more consultative approach.

Right before the guests arrive. The solutions expo and dinner.

How was it received?

It will be interesting to see the reports that are generated from this week’s summit but we did receive some very positive tweets during the event (check out the whole twitter feed from the event):

  • Conclusion from [Dell Analyst Summit]: Dell 2.0 has arrived. We’ve called it 1.x to date. No longer. They’ve cracked the “solutions” code — Jonathan Eunice, Illuminata
  • Dell’s vision is quite clear and lingo shows detachment from manufacturer approach – openness remains as a mantra — Giorgio Nebuloni, IDC
  • Dell talking solution accelerators. Didn’t hear this message from them a few yrs ago. Highlights strengths of Perot & Dell 2gether — Tim Sheedy, Forrester
  • Great session with Dell Health IT team. Great progress and compelling positioning in the space. Good prog telling a sngl story — Crawford Del Prete, IDC

Updated 11/04

Here are interviews I did with two of the analysts who attended the summit:

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

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