LAS VEGAS–Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell took a circumspect look at the company’s mission and future during a presentation that kicked off programming at the annual Dell Tech World.
Dell characterized his namesake group of brands “the essential infrastructure company,” and noted a $20 billion R&D investment over the past five years. He said with the combination of computing and 5G is creating a “revolution.”
“A new age of miracles is literally around the corner,” Dell said. “It’s up to us to ensure that technology reflects our humanity and our values. While technology can amplify human genius, it can also amplify human frailty.”
During the morning keynotes, 5G references often called out artificial intelligence as a key use case for 5G.
Tom Burns, SVP and GM of Dell EMC Networking and Solution, said the relationship between 5G and AI is “really about the data. Data is one of the greatest assets of any company. How do you connect to that and use it in the whole area of AI and ML?”
Another prominent theme was the distribution of compute processes out to the network edge. That was reflected in on of the key announcements Monday. Dell Technologies and Microsoft are working on a “fully native, supported, and certified VMWare cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure,” the company’s cloud platform.
Microsoft 365 and VMWare Workspace ONE users will see tighter integration across devices of Office 365.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was on hand for the announcement and said, in a statement, “mutual customers with an integrated cloud experience and digital workplace solutions to open up new opportunities and meet their evolving needs.”
Dell said the “goal is to provide a single view from edge to core to cloud.”
Back to the big picture, Dell said during his keynote, “Technology overwhelmingly improves our lives, but it also comes with challenges and we assume those challenges for better lives on the global scale. This is why we all come together. We’re working together with you to build a better world.”
