Dell Accelerates and Simplifies Deployment of Enterprise Applications; Company Expands Mission-Critical Premier Enterprise Services

Business Wire, April 4, 2001

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 4, 2001

Dell (Nasdaq:DELL) will use its build-to-order expertise to help businesses speed and simplify the deployment of leading database and business application software, the company announced today.

Building on its leadership in providing customized server and storage systems based on industry standards, Dell's new Infrastructure Accelerator initiative helps shorten the time it takes to get business software installed and operating by reducing complexity associated with its acquisition, installation and deployment. This initiative, coupled with enhanced services Dell also announced today, is another building block in Dell's enterprise strategy, designed to address the critical application, infrastructure and services needs of its customers.

Specifically, Dell has developed sizing and configuration tools, and is providing custom factory integration for leading applications from i2 Technologies, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. The company also will provide consulting services to preload the applications on customer's systems, prior to shipment from Dell factories. Customers from large multi-national companies and government agencies to small businesses can use this approach to speed solution implementation and help lower total cost of deployment.

UK Government Gateway Goes for Speed

The UK's Government Gateway is a unique e-Government service that will facilitate cross-government interaction and enable secure online communication between the citizens, businesses and government departments. The Government Gateway is part of the UK Government's national Information Age initiative, which aims to provide online access to all services by 2005, that was launched by British Prime Minister Tony Blair last year.

Dell and Microsoft teamed up to meet an aggressive rollout schedule for the first phase of the U.K. Government Gateway project. According to Alan Mather, project manager for the Government Gateway, UK Cabinet Office, the selection of Dell and Microsoft was made due to the ease and speed of deployment, combined with its high levels of integration with the various applications already in use by his organization.

"We had ambitious deadlines and needed to deploy quickly, so we chose to use industry-standard software and hardware rather than proprietary solutions," Mather said. "Dell and Microsoft were able to quickly think through the challenge, design an enterprise-class solution and refine it. What should have taken three or four months to complete was done in just three weeks. We simply couldn't miss the target date."

Speed to Solution Key for Deployment of Leading Applications

As part of the infrastructure accelerators offering, Dell will offer its customers an end-to-end engagement model with Dell serving as the single point of accountability for deployment of applications from Microsoft and Oracle on Intel-architecture-based servers. Dell will offer validated and tuned stacks of many of Microsoft's .NET applications, including Microsoft(R) SQL Server 2000 and Commerce Server 2000, BizTalk Server 2000 and Exchange 2000. Dell Technology Consulting offers in-depth assistance with the design, validation, performance tuning, and staging and integration of Microsoft Commerce Server 2000, SQL Server 2000, Exchange 2000 and Windows 2000 applications. Dell will offer the Oracle8i Appliance and the Oracle9i Application Server Appliance factory installed on Dell PowerEdge servers.

Dell also will offer sizing and configuration tools, custom factory integration, and expertise to speed the deployment of i2 TradeMatrix Pronto(tm) and i2 Supply Chain Management applications from i2 and SAP's mySAP.com platform.

For customers requiring a more tailored solution for large scale deployments, Dell offers Custom Factory Integration services that provide "mass customization" to deliver a unique image that is ready-to-deploy. Dell also incorporates application expertise gained from its own deployment of many of these applications and those of other Dell customers into the bundled configurations. The Accelerator tools include performance characterizations, sizing tools, a variety of technical whitepapers, best practices customer workshops and solution engineering services.

Premier Enterprise Services Simplify Deployment

Dell also today announced Premier Enterprise Services, an expansion of its line of mission-critical enterprise services. Premier Enterprise Services is a comprehensive portfolio of services that is designed to help maximize technology utilization, ensure rapid deployment and increase system uptime. These services are designed to support Dell enterprise customers according to their organization's specific computing needs, ensuring them of a single point of accountability, maximum uptime and the highest customer satisfaction possible.

For more information on Dell's Infrastructure Accelerators, go to www.dell.com/accelerators and for more information on Dell's Premier Enterprise Services, visit www.dell.com/enterpriseservices.>