Dell may have puts no limits on its channel growth, but it also didn’t put any limits on the number of attendees at Dell World 2014.
Dell executives confirmed to CDN that Dell World had a record-breaking attendance of just over 6,000 people. More than 600 of those were channel partners, of which many were competing partners who showed up to the conference because they did not agree with HP’s decision to split.
Read more: Dell puts no limits on its channel growth
A year after Dell turned private, the hardware vendor announced a $125 million investment in its channel business to accelerate its end-to-end product strategy for 2015 at Dell World.
Currently, a little over 40 per cent of the company’s global revenue goes through channel partners and 10 out of 11 regions the vendor does business in – including Canada – has grown is partner sales by double digits, according to Cheryl Cook, Dell’s channel chief (pictured).
Watch this video interview with Cheryl Cook: Dell aligning channel to four imperatives
Dell CEO Michael Dell turned up at the partner portion of the Dell World conference even thought his appearance was not on the agenda.
He also spent an hour fielding questions from the press and market analysts that day.
Read more: Michael Dell’s viewpoints on…
One of the more crowded areas at the Dell World expo hall was the Dell police car.
Just about a week before the opening of the conference, an Atlanta-based solution provider named Utility Inc. announced a partnership with Dell Inc. that will see the hardware vendor develop rugged mobility solutions for the law enforcement marketplace.
Watch this video on the Dell Police Car: Law enforcement arms itself with Dell rugged technology
There were plenty of Canadian executives from the channel and distribution communities at Dell World.
Pictured here with former Dell Canada channel chief David Miketinac is Rola Dagher, networking sales executives for Dell Canada and Todd Cox, CTO of Able-One Systems Inc., a solution provider from Kitchener, Ont.
Read more: Dell gets price aggressive for the software-defined space
Dell has recently entered the tier 2 distribution business through new alliances with Ingram Micro Canada, Tech Data Canada and Synnex Canada. Pictured here is Suzanne MacDonald, Ingram Micro Canada’s director of sales, major accounts and direct market resellers.
Read more: Ingram furthers partnership with Dell in Canada
Dell Canada executives held a party at the Fogo Brazilian SteakHouse in downtown Austin, Tex. for Canadian solution provider executives and distribution executives such as Keith Jalbert, the vice president of commercial sales for Synnex Canada.
One of the more interesting developments out of Dell World was a proof of concept PC intended to change the way people work.
Read more: Dell attempts to reinvent the desktop PC
The Dell Canada party went well into the night. Many Canadians braved the Mexican monsoon that drenched Austin for two days to attend the party. Pictured here is Dell Canada executive Natalie Cerullo, who was one of the organizers. But everyone was up and ready the following morning’s big announcement of the Dell Cloud Marketplace.
Read more: Dell introduces its own cloud marketplace
Jolera CEO Alex Shan also made the trip down to Austin for Dell World. Jolera was named Canadian partner of the Year by Dell. Shan is pictured here with Dell Channel Chief Cheryl Cook and Bill Rodrigues, the president of Dell North America.
Shan joined CDN along with Dell Canada president Kevin Peesker on the debut episode of CDN TV.
Watch it here: CDN TV Debut show: Channel partners and vendors working together
Jessica Jackley, who is with child, delivered a passionate keynote address to end the conference at Dell World. Jackley is the founder and former Chief Marketing Officer of KIVA, the world’s first peer-to-peer micro-lending Web site. KIVA enables people to loan money, sometimes as little as $25, to poor entrepreneurs around the world. Jackley started KIVA with the intent to provide a new and affordable way for the world to start micro-enterprises.
Read more: Dell is now calling itself a “digital” company