Dell DELL +0.19% rolled out today a dizzying array of announcements in the course of less than an hour at their
Enterprise Forum, a forum focused on Dell’s largest customers. One of the biggest shockers o the morning was an expanded alliance that Dell has struck with Oracle ORCL +1.71%Corp. What was characterized as a “significantly expanded strategic partnership,” Oracle’s Mark Hurd showed up via video to announce and support their new alliance. You can find the full video here.
While I will roll out a complete analysis later, this does really beg a few questions:
- Does this signal the decline of Oracle‘s X86 line? If they have Dell, why do they need their own, which have consistently lost market share?
- Does this mean that Dell now has the ability to penetrate deeper into the enterprise? There’s no love lost between HP, IBM IBM +0.88% and Oracle, and this could give Dell a leg up. We will need to see the details of any exclusivity as this make a big difference.
- Does this signal an Oracle investment in Dell?
While we don’t have answers to those questions, I will be analyzing this over the next few weeks and will follow up when I have some answers.