April 13, 2008

HP & Dell - No Longer Traditional Computer Vendors

When you think of "PC" vendors what do you think of?

Dell, HP, Lenovo, Gateway, Sony and a few others. Right?

When you think of file sharing, logo design, email service and managed services for your office - you don't think of HP and Dell. Well not until recently that is.

These two, quite traditional, "computer vendors" are major sellers of traditional desktops and servers to small businesses, however very rapidly they are turning into a one stop shop of more services for small businesses.

I just read on Dell's blog that they have acquired email provider MessageOne. This goes hand in hand with their recent acquisitions of managed service provider Everdream and Silverback Technologies.

HP recently announced a new service, an outgrowth of an acquisition, HP Upline, which is a first class and very robust file management service - more on this in a separate post.

With HP's Logoworks division, HP is definitely more than PCs. It also provides small businesses with logo design services that go hand in hand with Hp's move to encourage more small businesses that they don't have to go to a traditional printer for print jobs, but can print on their own from within their business. HP provides the printer (of course) marketing templates and expertise via a variety of online tools.

As you look for solutions to help you use technology as a tool to grow your business, your "PC vendor" will be more and more a part of this equation.

DellShares, Dell's communication for the investor community, goes further into Dell's plans and writes MessageOne is another key piece in expanding Dell's services, especially in the rapidly growing SaaS enabled managed services market and complements our recent SaaS acquisitions of Silverback Technologies and Everdream we completed late last year.

EqualLogic is aimed at Dell's drive to Simplify IT and virtualization for mid-sized enterprise customers through Dell's channel partners and direct channel. EqualLogic has the third largest sales of iSCSI SANs and has patented storage virtualization technology that will give customers the power to cost-effectively install, expand and modify their data storage resources. We will build upon the portfolio of existing customers and channel partners for all of these offerings and will incorporate the respective technologies into future Dell services, including Dell's new ProSupport offering announced earlier this month.

tags: dell , hp | 0 comments