Are Solutions the New Normal? Dell Thinks So
Solution marketing seems to be the way to go with hardware manufacturers packaging software with their hardware. Dell recently announced that they will start selling servers preloaded with Apache’s open source Hadoop data processing platform.
According to Jospeh George, Dell’s director of cloud marketing, their Clouder Solution for Hadoop is “…a direct response to feedback we’ve been hearing from our customers.” The director went on to say that Hadoop has become the standard for organizations trying to understand huge sets of unstructured data.
Dell’s solution uses the Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop, the Cloudera Enterprise management tools, and includes Crowbar, a fast deployment tool. For the hardware Dell offers PowerEdge C2100, C6100 or C6105 servers. These servers are specialized with modest physical space and power requirements. Michael Dell, Dell’s CEO, in a recent interview with InfoWorld, explained his company’s shift away from hardware and towards solutions:
“Five years ago we would say: Hey, we’ve got shiny boxes. And the customer would sort of say: Well, don’t really care, I’m busy, leave me alone. What do you actually know about my problem? And can you help me solve this problem I have? I’m trying to build a next-generation supply chain. I’m trying to make my sales force more productive. I want to get better outcomes for my students or my patients. If you know something about that in the vertical that I’m in, then I want to talk to you. If you don’t, go away and leave me alone.”Solutions actually target the heart of a customer’s problem, which makes Dell’s offerings more relevant and attractive. The company cites the doubling of earnings as evidence that this approach is working.
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[Photo courtesy of Logok.]
