At Dell’s first trade show event since its merger with EMC in 2016, attendees wondered if the pace of innovation would slow down for the supersized organization.  Those fears were allayed quickly thanks to the boost in hyper-converged solutions acquired through the EMC alliance. This is according to Alan Atkinson, vice president and general manager of CX appliances, Converged Platforms and Solutions Division, at Dell EMC, Dell Technologies Inc.’s infrastructure group.

Since the merger, “The pace of announcements has been just huge. … The pace just continues to accelerate,” Atkinson said, adding that “the game is on in hyper-converged.”

Atkinson spoke with Paul Gillin (@pgillin) and John Walls (@JohnWalls21), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile live-streaming studio, during Dell EMC World in Las Vegas, Nevada. (*Disclosure below.)

Expanded network infrastructure portfolio

The company has just concluded its 10th quarter selling XC hyper-converged appliances, and during that time, its portfolio has increased tremendously, according to Atkinson. This is particularly true in the area of network infrastructure.

Atkinson elaborated on his division’s expanding product line, as well as its aggressive marketing strategy.

“We were one of the first to market in the hyper-converge space,” he said. “We have more experience at understanding how this business grows than anybody here.” To back up this claim, Atkinson explained how Dell has been flooded with customers eager to incorporate its solutions to their large-scale networking needs. “I continue to be amazed at the growth rates that we’re seeing, not only in XC appliances, but in our entire hyper-converged portfolio … just huge shifts,” he said.

The company’s customer base is rapidly adopting hyper-converged solutions for their data centers, Atkinson stated. “Not trivial workloads. We’re talking big, mainstream customers with all sorts of workloads,” he said.

Why are businesses so eager to work with Dell EMC to fulfill their networking needs? “We make it easy to get into. We have a wide breadth of solutions … and most of them are exclusive. There’s not another place to get what we have,” Atkinson said, also mentioning the company’s recently announced 14G infrastructure.

Dell EMC’s mission moving forward is to attract new users and acquire new solutions to compete in a competitive market, Atkinson concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Dell EMC World 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell EMC World. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial influence on content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE