What do you think of Dell acquiring Force10? My first reaction was surprise, very surprised.
I was in the middle of a conversation with a friend when the RSS feed popped up in front of me – “Dell acquiring Force10”! I cut that conversation short to read the rest of the details … wow, that’s a good buy!
With all the rumors flying around that Brocade was the most obvious choice, Force10 was out of the blue for me. As the euphoria settled down, I thought Dell had made a very smart move. Brocade, unfortunately, is still pretty much a Fibre Channel company, with 75% of its business relying heavily on Fibre Channel and FCoE. Even though Brocade has Foundry now, Brocade has not strongly asserted itself as an front runner and innovator of 10Gigabit Ethernet.
Meanwhile, Force10 has been a up-and-coming force (pun intended) to be reckon with, strengthening its position as a 10GbE player in the market. And with 10GbE now, and 40GbE or 100GbE coming in the next 2-3 years, Force10 will be riding the wave of the future. Dell can only benefit from that momentum.
Dell has been very, very aggressive to push itself into the enterprise storage space. From its acquisition of EqualLogic in 2007, to Exanet, Ocarina and Compellent last year, there is no doubt that Dell wants this space badly.
The first challenge for Dell is to put its story together and convince the customers that they are no longer Dell, the PC/laptop direct seller, but a formidable company capable of providing enterprise solutions, services and support.
The second challenge, and even bigger one, is itself; its culture of changing mindset. The game has changed; the rule has change. The enterprise is a totally different ballgame. Is Dell ready? Is Dell ready to change itself?
Maybe the Force(10) be with Dell!
