The pace of digitisation has accelerated ever since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world, and the foundation technology block which is driving this transformation are the servers.

COVID-19 has led to an environment where social distancing, work from home, and virtual meetings have become the new normal. These forms of interactions and activities can take place only through digital channels.

The core fundamental block of this digital transformation is based on server technology and Dell Technologies is keen to focus on more innovations to meet the demands of the marketplace.

“Servers are the base on which the entire IT infrastructure is built and organisations have now undertaken this transformational journey to create new applications. This is fuelling the growth of server market,” says Senior Director and General Manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group of Dell Technologies India, Manish Gupta.

Organisations are compelled to innovate as they need to build new channels to engage with their customers to provide the right kind of experience and this innovation is being driven through technology.

Today, servers are not just a hardware box with certain software ingrained into it to provide the connectivity, but have become much more sophisticated devices with more features built into it.

Manish says, “There is significant technology infrastructure which has been created on the servers which facilitates seamless end use of devices like a desktop or a mobile phone.”

“We brought in the concept of automation into our server infrastructure fairly early which allows self-healing by leveraging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning,” says Manish.

Dell Technologies is focussed on increasing its speed in marketing its server technologies. “If a customer is looking at a cloud solution, we can give it in a lesser time and also tailor-make it,” says Manish.

Market leadership

These innovations have catapulted Dell Technologies to the number one position in the Indian server market. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), Dell Technologies emerged as the top vendor in the India x86 server market for the first quarter of 2020, with a revenue share of 36 percent and a revenue of $71.3 million.

IDC says the key wins for Dell Technologies came from professional services, banks, high-tech semiconductor manufacturing companies, and telecommunication vendors. The next two places went to Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco which had a revenue share of 23.1 percent and 8.8 percent, respectively.

On the market leadership, Manish says, “We have always remained focussed on innovation. One cannot lead unless one brings the best and the latest.”

Security aspect

In the pandemic situation, there is an increased thrust towards the aspect of security with majority of transactions happening online and organisations having this as their top priority to protect their reputation. At the same time, they are also looking at a flexible consumption model and this is driving the demand for server technologies. 

Manish says, “Organisations also need to engage with their employees as work from home is becoming the new norm. They need to ensure that their employees are given the right access to data which is secure and seamless.”

As the demand for server technology is on the rise, Manish says, “We have always been on the path of innovation and the big part of the IT transformation is through a modern architecture.”

The traditional form of IT infrastructure had the silos of server, network, and storage, but Dell Technologies claims it is breaking these barriers to create a more seamless environment.

These include demands like different requirements of smartphone users, innovating for client devices, multiple platforms, and creating the right data access.

One example of this innovation is edge computing where the processing does not happen through the data centre but in a localised computer or server.   

“We have innovated significantly on the edge platforms and we are also investing significantly in this area,” says Manish.

Given the wide customer reach of Dell Technologies which cuts across large enterprises, SMEs, and also startups, Manish says their products cater to all these segments.

In this exercise, Dell Technologies also relies heavily on its channel partners in reaching out to its customers.

COVID-19 impact

COVID-19 has certainly impacted the overall business environment in an unprecedented way. According to IDC, the lockdown posed major challenges to multiple sectors such as manufacturing, IT and ITeS, consumer services, and media, due to which server market growth in 2020 seemed highly uncertain.

Enterprise spending is limited to essentials only and projects with long completion time-frame are either coming to a halt or getting further delayed, it said.

“There is no doubt that the new environment is very challenging but we want to continue to provide innovative solutions to our partners,” says Manish.

The pace of innovation is certainly is going to increase as there are more demands from the technology ecosystem as concepts like automation, security, and seamless connectivity have become more relevant than ever.

“These are the times for us to demonstrate our capabilities to our customers and prepare them for the future,” says Manish.