Dell Technologies is investing more of its resources on the rapidly growing Internet of Things (IoT) space. The company has announced a new IoT-focused division that includes a partner program, product development, labs and consumption models.
At a recent event in New York, CEO Michael Dell announced the IoT Solutions Division and stated that Ray O’Farrell, former executive vice president and chief technology officer of VMware will be “general manager for Dell Technologies IoT division, according to a news reporton Redmond Channel Partner.
In a press release, O’Farrell explained, “Our new IoT Division will leverage the strength across all of Dell Technologies family of businesses to ensure we deliver the right solution — in combination with our vast partner ecosystem — to meet customer needs and help them deploy integrated IoT systems with greater ease.”
In order to meet this objective, Dell said it will be investing $1 billion into its IoT efforts over the next three years. The product range that will be affected is wide, and includes Dell servers; storage, both on-premises and in the cloud; Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Pivotal Container Services for developing new cloud-based analytics applications; and Virtustream cloud management software, the news report said.
The company’s IoT Solutions Partner Program, which currently has 90 members including Microsoft, SAP and Intel, will be central to growing Dell’s IoT presence, according to the announcement. “The program will now support partners across all Dell Technologies businesses, allowing for easier collaboration and implementation of blueprints,” the company said in the statement.
In May, VMware announced its Pulse IoT Center during the Dell EMC World conference. Pulse IoT Center is an edge-to-cloud management platform for enterprise-scale computing. It includes technology from its AirWatch endpoint management solution and vRealize Operations software for infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting.
Gartner Inc. has estimated that there will be 8.4 billion IoT devices in use by the end of this year, a number that’s expected to grow to 30 billion by 2020. This may provide a huge opportunity for companies like Dell.