COMPUTER GIANT Dell has unveiled its vision for the future of computing and its business strategy for 2009. At an event in Dublin, the US company showcased some of its new products from mini-computers, laptops, workstations, servers and printers that were aimed at the consumer and business markets.

Dermot O’Connell, managing director of Dell Ireland, said the computer giant had identified three key areas where it would invest: services, mobility and environment/green IT that all came under the umbrella outlook of what it described as the “new connected era”.

Dell desperately needs some good news to counteract the last few years of falling share prices, production problems and financial irregularities. The company is hoping to strengthen its hand by refocusing on these three sectors and get back on track.

“I think Dell stopped growing and we realised we had to do things differently and that we had to evolve and move forward as a company,” said Mr O’Connell. “And the most dramatic evidence of that was the multichannel model we moved to rather than the direct [sales] strategy we employed. All that change takes time. People and processes need to change and we’re in that transformation period at the moment.”

With a new thrust on its notebook range for consumers and business, O’Connell said Dell’s strategy was to build upon the whole notion of the connected era with one billion mobile workers expected by 2011.

With this in mind, mobility products and services is an area towards which the company is moving with a range of laptops featuring long battery life and, according to O’Connell, a strong emphasis on personalisation and design.

“One of the themes today is how we are going to cope with the back end of the drive towards mobility. When people realise that you can now get up to 19 hours battery life [in some situations], there will be a massive drive towards notebooks. Added to that is the improvement in services such as 3G. Microsoft will have its follow up to Vista coming soon as well.

“People will want all their communication in a single place – unified communications – which will make mobile working easier and more collaborative.”

Another area the company is refocusing on is services – something it talked up a number of years ago yet an area where it never seemed to make the impact it intended. “I think we didn’t do such a good job of telling people what we were doing,” said O’Connell.

While Dell is looking to the future, the prospects for its manufacturing operation in Limerick have recently looked uncertain, with speculation that it is moving its build capability out of Ireland.

Mr O’Connell said a global review of its manufacturing operations was ongoing.