Small businesses critical says Dell
Dell wittily tied in a certain "je ne sais quoi" to the transport theme for its "Take your own path," event today, hosting a panel of small business "heroes" at the St Pancras Eurostar Terminal in London.
The event also handily coincided with Dell's 25th anniversary and was kicked off by Dell's global president of Small and Medium Business (SMB), Steve Felice, talking about how his firm helped small businesses combat the sometimes almost insurmountable challenges they face as start-ups.
Dell, which itself comes from the rather humble beginnings of starting out as a project in Michael Dell's college dorm, says it has great empathy with SMBs, with Felice noting "We still think of ourselves as a very large small/medium business."
Before handing over to the CEO of various now highly successful start-ups to tell how they "embarked upon their journey," Felice said Dell felt SMBs were "an underserved segment" in the tech industry and emphasised his firm was making a serious point of devoting rather significant efforts to SMBs. Felice also mentioned how important SMBs had become over the past year, playing a "critical role" in economic rehabilitation by stimulating the stagnating recession crippled economy.
Dell is not exactly acting on a bleeding heart impulse, though. Every year some $400 billion is spent on tech by SMBs, so it's a huge market and a very profitable one for Dell to be in.
Dell's PowerEdge and Equalogic lines are, of course, targeted specifically at small and medium enterprises, as are Dell's collection of very businessy Vostro laptops and the firm's latest sexy bit of biz tech, the thin and light brushed metal beauty, Latitude Z laptop.
