Cloud computing, virtualization and workload migrations are helping to boost Dell’s server business, as the company continues its transition to a solutions provider, according to Dell executive Forrest Norrod.
In a recent interview with eWEEK, Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of Dell’s Server Platforms business, said that even though the company is rapidly intensifying its push to become less of a box maker and more of a solutions provider, servers will still be a key piece of the equation.
“We still see the server business being very highly [profitable], with very strong growth,” Norrod said, pointing to such drivers as cloud computing, virtualization and the migration of workloads from RISC and mainframes to x86-based environments.
Dell’s numbers from the fourth quarter of 2011 support Norrod’s view. According to figures released by Dell Feb. 15, revenue for enterprise solutions and services grew 7 percent over the same period last year—and are now almost a third of all of the company’s revenue—and server revenue jumped 16 percent.