UPDATED 16:32 EDT / APRIL 30 2019

CLOUD

Not a conglomerate: Michael Dell savors the integrated pieces of his growing company

Some companies start private and go public. Many never go public at all. And then there is Michael Dell’s company, Dell Technologies Inc., which started private, went public, went back to private, and is now public again.

What has emerged from the roller-coaster journey is a company that’s approaching $100 billion in revenue, exceeding that of IBM Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. in the past year, while building a powerful combination of businesses that are poised to control the multicloud discussion.

For Michael Dell (pictured), founder and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies, the best news is that Dell doesn’t feel anything like the massive business it has become.

“Some of the analysts are starting to say, ‘Hey, this doesn’t really feel like a conglomerate,’” Dell said. “I think investors are increasingly understanding that we’ve created an incredible business here. We’re not like a Berkshire Hathaway.”

Dell spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Dell Tech World event in Las Vegas. They discussed future innovations that Dell sees on the horizon and the company’s continued role in the multicloud world (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Here comes edge computing

As an entrepreneur who foresaw that direct sales of personal computers would overtake indirect resale channels, Dell has retained a perspective on the technology world that comes from more than 35 years in the business. There are two major waves offshore that will be significant when they finally hit the technology beach, according to Dell’s founder.

The first is a transition from today’s enterprise information technology world, which has been focused on storage, compute, data management and especially cloud.

“There will be something much bigger than private or public cloud,” Dell said. “It’s the edge. I think there will be way more compute and data on the edge in 10 years than any of the derivatives of cloud that we want to talk about.”

The other major wave involves the future impact of two major technologies, still nascent in many ways, but on the horizon nevertheless.

“Something is coming that’s quite significant,” Dell predicted. “We’re just at the beginning of 5G and artificial-intelligence technology. There will be a whole other wave of companies, I suspect many more across all industries, that just unlock all kinds of new capabilities and opportunities.”

Dell’s company rolled out a cavalcade of products today, including new capabilities for the hyperconverged infrastructure, AI, cloud and edge computing. And while Dell tries to look ahead for the next wave of innovation, his firm is clearly focused on strengthening its hand to meet workload demands for a multicloud model.

“We’re bringing to customers all the resources that they need to operate in the hybrid and multicloud world,” Dell said. “Stay tuned. We’ve got lots more in the queue.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s three-day coverage of the Dell Tech World 2019 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither the sponsors of select segments of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE

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