Niamh Townsend Dell Ireland’s General Manager talks about Cloud, OS’s and Security

Yesterday I attended the Dell Solutions tour at the Convention Centre Dublin, and I interviewed Niamh Townsend @TownsendNiamh the General Manager of Dell Ireland.

I have seen that you are going along with different OS’s. You have gone with Android, with chromebook, and with Windows. Which one do you think is the most popular one for you? 

So for us it’s about giving the customer’s choice and we find that our customers are quite attached to the platforms that they work on, and it’s for us to be able to make sure that we can offer not only what we think is going to be the next big thing but that we cover all the areas for our customers as well. Another area where we’re quite open as well would be on our OS from the networking prospective. So we have not just on the client space but also in the enterprise space around data centres looking at how do we make it easier for customers to engage, how do we lead the open networking movement and we’ve been recognised by Gartner for that and being disruptive and innovative around open tech networking.

When it comes to different tablets and laptops you have got Chromebooks, Android and also Linux, which one is the most popular for you? 

For us we are seeing a lot of traction with our Ultrabooks, the XPS13 is getting fantastic reviews.

The edge to edge screen makes a big difference, small form factor but a big screen because a lot of people are doing their full day’s work on an Ultrabook and for us that’s really important.

Are they Windows based? 

Windows based primarily. We also have the Chromebook available as well and that for the Android users is a perfect transition. 

What about Linux as well, is there much traction in that? 

So we do have Linux, we would see Linux more in tech environments than in the consumer and retail space or even in the commercial desktops or commercial notebooks. 

Has the cloud come more popular for you in the past few years? 

So cloud for us is really what we are seeing is that our customers are looking at a hybrid cloud model. They want to leverage the best of both worlds, have the security and the sustainability of on premise but also to have the flexibility and scalability of off premise, and what we try to do is help to marry the two of those together.

We are building the private cloud for our customers but also building the public cloud for the large organisations that provide that solution and then creating the connections between the two with the Dell Cloud Manager which was formally on Stratus to be able to manage the connections between those. 

As regards security, how big has that become for you in the past few years?

Security is absolutely massive, you know from the end point management identity and access not only in terms of the data but also around regulation and to meet those requirements, and then when you look at the threats that are coming we have our managed security services with Secure Works and they monitor not only the active threats but are constantly identifying new threats that are coming into the environment.