A Dell Technologies investor roadshow has revealed plans for Dell to push into the data management market.
Dell Vice-Chairman and COO Jeff Clarke, and EVP/CFO Tom Sweet, made presentations setting out Dell’s thoughts on spinning off VMware and its post-spin plans. The roadshow slide deck looked at Dell’s two main divisions — ISG (Infrastructure Solutions Group) and CSG (Client Solutions Group) — and showed that they were each ranked number one in various market segments:
The deck also showed Dell’s market segment growth estimates and plans:
Data management services is identified as a market extension for Dell, building on its existing market-leading positions in storing data and protecting it (with PowerProtect for example).
We would expect data management services to be added to Dell’s APEX Storage-as-a-Service portfolio.
The Dell execs showed a slide listing adjacent growth opportunities:
This included Data Management, with Dell moving from data persistence (storage) to data activation, so that customers can extract business value from data. There is a $74B addressable market opportunity (using IDC data) with a 12 per cent CAGR from 2020 to 2024.
Comment
We don’t have access to the roadshow presentation text, so these slides are all we have. They indicate to us that Dell is looking to move into stored data search and analysis. One way of using this would be to tier older, less-accessed data to cheaper and slower storage — an ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) approach. Think Komprise.
Another would be to set up master versions of data and provide virtual copies for test and dev, and other users — a DataOps (Data Operations) type facility. Think Delphix.
A third would be to provide data warehouse type analytical facilities to measure aspects of a business’s performance.
We don’t envisage Dell moving into the data warehouse market, but it could provide linking platform software, to integrate its data stores with upper stack analytic routines.
Existing suppliers in the ILM, DataOps and data preparation markets may have to make room for a pushy new competitor. We also think that Dell could make targeted acquisitions to buy in needed technology. The two presenters’ slides mentioned this kind of thing in general terms, but nothing specific to data management.
