The latest innovations in the multicloud era were on display in Las Vegas earlier this month as Dell Technologies World convened as an in-person gathering for the first time since the spin-off of VMware Inc. in November.

While there was plenty of discussion around VMware’s continued influence in Dell’s go-to-market strategy, the focus was largely on multicloud and the role of APEX in shaping the company’s as-a-service data cloud, hybrid and private cloud portfolio.

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, covered the Dell Technologies World event through exclusive interviews with company executives and partners. (* Disclosure below.)

Here are three insights you might have missed:

1. Standardization and consistency are important elements in Michael Dell’s approach to business.

At one point during theCUBE’s exclusive interview with Michael Dell (pictured), the company’s founder described the chaos in IT environments where multiple clouds and frameworks, such as Kubernetes, need continual oversight.

“It’s a real challenge to manage all of that,” Dell said. “So what people are trying to do is create ruthless standardization … create consistent environments where you can operate things across all the different domains that you want. And so, this is what we’re bringing together in the capabilities that we’re delivering.”

The creation of industry standards has been a consistent theme of Dell’s throughout his career. Dell spoke about the need for specific hardware and software standards in a 1995 interview, barely a decade after he founded the company.

The emergence of standard operating models has also influenced Dell’s vision for the future. In a 2017 interview, Dell correctly predicted that software-defined data centers would become the “de-facto standard” within the next five to 10 years.

More recently, Dell has called for open standards in the telecommunications space with the advent of 5G. Dell Technologies’ introduction in February of new telecom solutions included support for standards-based private 5G networks.

“Open standards are the solution to level the playing field in the telecom network and encourage innovation for the future including #5G,” Dell noted in a recent posting on Twitter.

Watch theCUBE’s complete interview with Michael Dell below:

2. Is IT still responsible for driving the digital transformation strategy in a company?

At the end of last year, the Wall Street Journal published a provocative story that called for the elimination of centralized IT departments. The ensuing debate raised broader questions around what the evolving role of IT in the enterprise should be.

“It really kind of opened my eyes,” said Dan O’Brien, senior vice president of technology solutions at Presidio Inc., in a discussion of the Wall Street Journal story during an interview with theCUBE. “The answer is it’s both. It’s your turn to wake up every day and figure out what the business unit needs to be successful. You need IT to be able to go make it work and be a true partner.”

The crux of the argument is that today’s organization needs IT, but that may not require a centralized IT department. The prevalence of cloud computing and open-source tools has empowered developers in many organizations to chart their own IT course.

One way to view the changing role of IT is to follow the money. Gartner Inc. recently reported survey results from 1,120 manager level or higher respondents that found that 74% of tech investments were being funded by business units outside of IT organizations.

Watch theCUBE’s complete interview with Dan O’Brien below:

3. The growth of edge solutions will fuel new competitive strategies for compute and data storage.

Because systems integrators and industry consultants work with a wide range of clients, they can have a broad view of emerging trends. One key integrator, Deloitte Consulting, is witnessing an interesting development at the edge.

Technologies for the edge figured prominently in the recent launch of a strategic distributed cloud practice involving Deloitte and VMware. The alliance was characterized in the announcement as an opportunity to enhance business outcomes and create competitive differentiation for enterprises.

This latest initiative speaks to strategy. Edge computing is emerging as a tactic for growing market share and leveraging compute to gain competitive advantage. This trend has been observed by Deloitte, as it has worked with a multitude of clients to develop edge solutions.

“It’s strategic; we’re looking to expand the way we’re doing compute and data storage,” said David Linthicum, chief cloud strategy officer at Deloitte, in a conversation with theCUBE during the event. “We’re starting to move a lot of these processes and a lot of these data collections and a lot of these analytics and a lot of knowledge engines out to the edge of networks. Ultimately, this is about tactical technology that has a strategic purpose.”

Watch theCUBE’s complete interview with David Linthicum and Bradd Lewis below:

You can catch up on SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s complete coverage of the Dell Technologies World event on theCUBE’s dedicated event channel.

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

Photo: SiliconANGLE