Straddling the often-competing worlds of data center hardware and the cloud, Dell Technologies today sought to convince customers it’s best positioned to help them move to cloud computing without giving up their own machines that still largely run their businesses.

The company, which now offers everything from Dell servers to EMC storage to cloud software from its VMware Inc. and Pivotal Software Inc. units, today introduced a raft of new storage products, previewed its new line of servers and announced new cloud-style monthly pricing for everything from servers to personal computers.

Kicking off the company’s first Dell EMC World conference since closing its massive acquisition of EMC Corp. in September, Chief Executive Michael Dell hammered home the notion that Dell alone can provide the largest range of solutions for companies gradually moving to the cloud but still dependent on servers, storage and networking on their own premises.

“We understand you’ve got a data center that’s full of applications … that needs modernizing,” he told some 13,500 people at the conference keynote. “We can drive a coordinated innovation across all your environment,” he said, calling its portfolio of products a “modular fast lane to cloud-ready.”

Of course, Dell isn’t alone. It faces big traditional rivals such as Oracle Corp. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. as well as cloud providers such as Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc.

Taking on cloud leaders

Tacitly acknowledging that fact, Dell posed a vision of cloud computing that involves infusing the cloud style of computing into all their operations, not just moving workloads to a particular cloud. “Cloud is not a place, but rather a way of doing information technology,” he said.

Indeed, Dell – usually reserved in public comments about competitors – came out swinging at the leading public clouds. “If you have a public-cloud-first strategy, I think you’re going to be uncompetitive,” he said, because public cloud services at large scale can cost twice as much as private clouds.

To that end, Dell announced new pricing for a number of its products, even PCs as a service so customers can essentially rent use of the hardware for a monthly charge per person and no long-term contract. It’s not yet clear whether that’s the way most customers will want to buy from Dell, but provides a way to pay for only what they use, like they do for cloud services.

“Dell EMC is adding this to servers, storage, virtual desktop infrastructure and PCs as a service,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “This is a big deal as it narrows the competitive advantage the public cloud has had.” However, he added, the company will need to keep pace with the public cloud providers with monthly, daily and even by-the-minute or by-the-second.

It’s debatable how much pricing can make a dent in the momentum of the cloud leaders, though. Dell trails far behind them in expertise in rapidly growing new data-intensive applications that require machine learning. And its support for the cloud transition may seem half-hearted at best to enterprises that have already made the commitment.

Dell also positioned the company as having all pieces needed for three main categories of applications: mission-critical applications, less critical general business applications and cloud-native applications. Public clouds have made strides on the last two, but Dell EMC President David Goulden noted that many customers still won’t move mission-critical applications such as Oracle databases and business software from SAP SE anytime soon. For those, he said, Dell can offer on-premises technologies, in particular its Virtustream infrastructure cloud provider that EMC had bought in 2015.

New servers and storage

Still, not surprisingly, Dell focused much of its attention at the keynote on new hardware and related software, with the usual basic improvements: faster, cheaper and smaller. For one, it provided a preview of its 14th-generation PowerEdge servers, which are slated to start selling this summer after Intel Corp.’s own next-generation Xeon chips start shipping.

The company also introduced a series of updated storage devices – the flagship VMAX enterprise storage platform, the high-end all-flash XtremeIO array, the midrange SC5020 hybrid disk-flash array and the Isilon network-attached storage arrays. Not least, it introduced several updates to its “hyperconverged” systems called VxRail, VxRack and XC that combine computing, storage and networking in one appliance.

Dell also announced a new combined venture arm, Dell Technologies Capital, that plans to invest about $100 million a year in startups. The company listed a wide range of potential investments, from storage and software-defined networking to machine learning and the Internet of Things.

“Customers are seeing that we really are one company,” Dell said in a subsequent interview on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile studio. Moorhead backed up his claim. “They’ve added a single pane of glass to manage all Dell EMC compute and storage units,” he said.

Here’s theCUBE’s interview with Michael Dell today:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is the paid media partner for Dell EMC World. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial influence on content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Dell EMC World livestream