Servers, PCs, Tablets on Display at Dell World 2014

AUSTIN, Texas—Dell executives used the recent Dell World 2014 show here to unveil a number of new initiatives designed to accelerate its efforts to grow its enterprise IT solutions and services ambitions. The company announced its PowerEdge FX converged infrastructure solution, new moves in its PC business that included a look at its "smart desk" concept, and the public beta of its Cloud Marketplace, a cloud brokerage initiative. It also gave CEO Michael Dell and other company executives the opportunity to tout the success of last year's $25 billion decision to take the tech vendor private in hopes of accelerating its transformation from a PC box maker to an end-to-end enterprise IT provider. Michael Dell did not discuss financial numbers, but did say his company was seeing significant growth in most businesses. He and other executives also noted that it stood in sharp contrast to the moves being made by competitors, in particular Hewlett-Packard's decision to break the company in two and IBM selling its x86 server business to fast-growing Lenovo. 

Michael Dell Front and Center

The CEO listens to John Swainson, president of software at Dell, answer a question regarding the Dell Cloud Marketplace at a press conference during the show's first day.

Running the Show

Dell put the systems running the event on display at the Dell World expo. The racks contained everything from Dell servers and storage appliances to its network-functions virtualization (NFV), wireless and Fluid Cache for SAN technologies.

FX a Highly Dense, Flexible Solution

The PowerEdge FX is a converged infrastructure solution that not only is dense, but also is flexible enough to enable businesses to customize the offering based on their workload needs.

The FX Sleds

In the FX solutions, the server, networking and storage are housed in "sled" modules that slip in and out of the 2U (3.5-inch) chassis. Such shared features as power and cooling are integrated into the chassis

FX Not the Only Converged Solution

Dell offers a number of converged data center systems, including VRTX, which launched in 2013 and is seen as a cloud-in-the-box product for smaller businesses.

Latest PowerEdge Servers on Display

The R630 was part of the 13th generation of PowerEdge servers that were rolled out in September and are designed to help businesses address the rapidly changing workload requirements in their data center. The R630 is a 1U (1.75-inch) system powered by the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 chips.

Working With Partners

Dell is aggressively working with other vendors to develop data center solutions. In this case, Dell partnered with storage vendor SolidFire in developing the VMware Horizon desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) offering.

Dell Upgrades Its Storage Offerings

The SC4020 appliance a new member of Dell's SC Storage Series all-flash configurations aimed at smaller businesses.

An Arresting Image on the Show Floor

The police car shown here was one of two in the expo during Dell World.

Rugged, Compact and Mobile

Inside the police car was a Latitude Rugged Extreme notebook, one of several systems in Dell's line of ruggedized laptops that were designed for hostile environments, including extreme temperature, moisture, impact, dust and vibration.

The Power of Two

Dell officials used a Precision workstation to run a game across two displays.

Thin Is In

Dell officials show off Wyse thin clients running virtual-desktop apps and featuring graphics acceleration from Nvidia.

Intel Inside the Expo

Longtime Dell partner Intel had a sizable presence on the show floor, including a wall featuring Dell tablets and notebooks that leverage its processors.

Putting the Convertibles on Display

Dell is embracing the push for new PC form factors, including the Latitude 13 7000 two-in-one system, which can be used as either a traditional PC or a tablet.

Tablets for Business

The company sees a role for tablets in the business world, and at Dell World, unveiled the 8-inch Venue 8 Pro 3000 device.

An Even Larger Enterprise Tablet

Also at the show, Dell unveiled the 11-inch Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series, which can be used as a tablet, Ultrabook or laptop.

On the Move

A key part of Dell's message centered around enabling the mobile workforce through such systems as notebooks and tablets. This display walked attendees through the various steps needed to make their businesses mobile.

Keeping the Eyes on the Prize

Attendees at the show could use the much-anticipated Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets created by Oculus VR—which was bought earlier this year by Facebook—to view parts of the upcoming movie "The Book of Life."

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