It’s no secret that Gartner Symposium is considered to be one of the biggest (if not the biggest) IT industry events. This year’s Symposium in Cannes drew a recent all-time high and there were more than 1,500 CIO’s in attendance – which is hopefully a sign of more optimistic times. In particular, Dell’s attendance was ‘unique’ – we put forth great efforts towards our demonstrating our services capabilities, but, more importantly, there was a general excitement all around due to Michael Dell’s presence and keynote this year. Comments and feedback from the session were outstanding – it’s clear that customers and stakeholders are beginning to fully grasp the capabilities and potential that makes up the ‘new’ Dell.

There were some common themes that emerged from Gartner and customers throughout the event. I’d like to outline these as the top five (Mark McDonald summarized some of these points well in his blog post from the show):

1. A one size fits all approach to IT and the ‘illusion’ of control is gone
2. It’s all about the cloud
3. The emergence of the consumerization of enterprise IT – driven by end-users - is changing the game
4. The role of the CIO is fundamentally changing – with the transformation of IT and the possibilities, they are becoming more of ‘trusted advisors’ and influencers internally than ever before
5. IT services is the glue with which to achieve the bottom line for customers

But for Dell, there were some real ‘ah ha’ moments from customers. Here are the key issues that really resonated with them:

• First and foremost there is a lot of interest in mobile solutions and the ‘eye-catching’ business applications we are showing based on the Dell Streak. Lots of customers have been waiting for an open, non-proprietary alternative that can be safely incorporated into their corporate network. Having access to the core business applications via virtual desktops was a hot topic.
• New to most is the focus Dell Services puts on applications – both to drive efficiencies by consolidation, rationalization and modernization as well as lowering the cost of delivery by automated application management and support from offshore. Two of our customers presented their journey with Dell Services at Symposium, highlighting how we enabled them to drive down costs so that they could invest in new business processes and innovative solutions to grow their business.
• Enabling the Efficient Enterprise is something most know us for in end-user computing and increasingly in the datacenter. Customers are becoming more aware that we have the expertise and consultants to help them drive the efficiencies and value they are working to achieve through our growing portfolio of supporting software solutions. Virtual Integrated Systems does just that.

Finally, Michael’s keynote summarized our vision for customers well: Dell wants to be a long-term partner in providing technology-enabled business solutions to different types of customers across the globe – ultimately helping them achieve their business goals and realize their true potential.

Be sure to check-out photos on the Dell Flickr site and the video below highlighting some of my thoughts from the show.