As Dell Technologies Inc. shifts its focus from software, the company is still emphasizing the importance of hardware in enterprise computing.

“Hardware still matters; last time I checked, doesn’t the software stuff work on the hardware?” said Jeff Clarke (pictured), vice chairman and co-chief operating officer at Dell Technologies Inc. “Clearly, being able to exploit the underlying hardware features and capabilities in your software in a differentiated way is important.”

Clarke spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and John Furrier during the Dell Technologies World event, an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the importance of hardware in an evolving software ecosystem, Dell’s acceleration into 5G, developing a modern storage portfolio and more. (* Disclosure below.)

The future is software

One thing has been made crystal clear during the pandemic: Businesses cannot survive in the world today without technology. All businesses are tech businesses, even if it’s not their focus. With innovations constantly being developed throughout the industry, it can be a challenge for these formerly unconnected businesses to know which innovations to take advantage of, according to Clarke.

“How do you actually knit this together in a way that is not complex and enables customers? That’s what I think customers want,” he explained. “So you think about our multicloud vision; it’s about building an ecosystem across all of the public clouds.”

As Dell has been on the front lines of the industry for several decades, it has extensive insight into the evolution of architecture and infrastructure. One of the biggest changes witnessed is the shift to software rather than just the hardware, according to Clarke.

“What’s changed certainly in this time and as we look going forward is the software capabilities are now ahead of … hardware capabilities,” he said. “Software innovation is going to lead, which is what we tried to hint at today, and I think that’s the future. That’s where you’re going to see us continue to drive and think about how we talk about technology today.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither Dell Technologies, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE