When I attended the RackSpace Customer event back at the end of September I was impressed with the talk that Paul Bell of Dell gave (Paul reports to CEO Michael Dell and is responsible for all business operations for Dell in North and South America).  [Note: in the re-org that was announced at the the end of the year at Dell, starting next month Paul will now be in charge of the group that focuses on government, education, health care and the environment]

Dell and the Cloud(s) (sources: my hand + the football Dell gave out at the conference + Friday’s sunset)

In his keynote Paul talked about Cloud Computing and the challenges the economy was presenting Dell and its customers.  I caught Paul after his talk and asked if I could tape a podcast with him.  He graciously agreed and here’s the result that I recorded at the end of last year.

Take a listen:

>> My talk with Paul (11:59): Listen (mp3)     Listen (ogg)

Some of the Topics we tackle:

• The key Cloud characteristics: Speed to deployment and ease of turning on/off
• The need to separate the “real” from the fictitious when it comes to the Cloud
• The interest Paul is seeing in the Cloud from smaller companies
• Two of the biggest ways Dells plays in the cloud 1) supplier of infrastructure 2) deliverer of IT as a service
• How on one hand the tough economy is driving interest in utilizing the cloud while at the same time it is causing a slow down in the sales of cloud infrastructure
• The economy (starts ~7:30): Looking back at what happened in 2001 and trying to gain insight
• How the economic malaise that hit North America has finally caught up with South America
• How Dell is planning to help customers during these tough times.

Barton George
Sr. Director, Business Development, Blueprint process mapping tool
Lombardi Software