From connected AI PCs to fully private on-prem networks, the combined AT&T and Dell portfolios deliver coverage solutions to meet customers where they are
AT&T and Dell Technologies continue to expand enterprise-facing offerings at a time when
businesses of all sizes are reckoning with the complexities of actually doing digital
transformation. This trend also plays to the respective companies’ strengths while creating
broader opportunities—firmly established at the enterprise edge, Dell is fostering an ecosystem around combining private connectivity and on-prem compute, and AT&T is reaching deeper into the enterprise with a focus on flexible, scalable converged connectivity.
In conversation with RCR Wireless News, AT&T Business Assistant Vice President of Product
Management Phillip Coleman made the point that network convergence is top of mind for the operator and its customers. “Our customers, in order to be successful, need both wireline and wireless,” he said, referencing AT&T’s fiber and 5G products. “This is where you really see the intersection of our 5G connectivity and the customer edge.”
Randy Tornes, global senior client executive with Dell Technologies, said the strategy with
regard to AT&T is to sell to, through and with across the entire Dell portfolio. “We do
complement each other,” he said. “We don’t overlap; we don’t compete.” At that enterprise edge Coleman referenced, Tornes said Dell can bring together its storage, servers and other solutions, with AT&T’s connectivity, to support workforce mobility, internet of things, and other use cases. Whatever the endpoint is, he said, “It needs to be connected.” And with the maturation of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI), the net-net for technology buyers will be “more and more need for AT&T connectivity and more and more need for Dell equipment on the edge.”
During Dell Technologies World in May, the company launched a new series of PCs featuring
the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite compute platform optimized for on-device gen AI. The latest Copilot+ PCs, including XPS, Inspiron and Latitude models, are perfect for mobile workforces drawing on data generated at the edge. “When you now look at the gen AI-enabled laptops…that’s where we get really excited about what’s going to happen on the true edge and how mobile is that edge going to be…We think that’s going to be everywhere.”
He talked through opportunities in partnership with AT&T including cellular-enabled Dell PCs connecting to the AT&T network, and standing up PC sales through AT&T. This approach, Tornes explained, scales up to the largest global enterprise and down to support small- and medium-sized businesses.
Big picture, Coleman said, “Between a Dell and an AT&T, we have a lot of assets and really it’s just a matter of us having the focus to come together to address the small business gaps, to address the things that are happening in enterprise driven by gen AI.” Expect more AT&T powering Dell solutions, he said.
