Most people know Dell as the world’s leading computer-maker. End of story. Not known to many, Dell is also involved in the development of related products and services such as the storage—which is the main focus of the Dell Storage Forum 2011. The first ever conference of its kind for the company has revealed its leader’s deep-seated love for storage. This inherence surfaced when they shelled out $940 million to purchase Compellent Technologies Inc, provider of highly virtualized storage solutions. The acquisition of Compellent was part of Dell’s quest to expand portfolio that already has EqualLogic and PowerVault.

As they address the real problem, Founder and CEO Michael Dell expresses the depth of his dedication to storage solutions. He said, “I often get asked what is the most exciting part of the Dell business. I have five kids and I love them all equally, but I do love storage – in fact Dell started as a storage company… A guy wanted to buy 150 disk drive upgrade kits from us and we had to clean up the college dorm ready for his visit. We designed a PC to format the drives. He saw the PC and asked us whether we sold them too – that was a good idea.”

He also talked about the current challenge and the “Dell-way” of dealing with it saying, “We had to take on the server solutions challenge, which is what we’ve done with our acquisitions by going deeper into the enterprise applications space, it’s not enough for these companies to just buy another bigger, more powerful server – they need to manage the data more efficiently.”

The recent and the first Dell Storage Forum that took place in Orlando has wowed hundreds of customers, partners and pundits present with several product releases that include the new Dell storage line-up.  We were there covering the event with live broadcasts and interviews.  Check out our video archive here.