Dell and Google
Huh, I just caught a Dell commercial showing them making Google search appliances. I was quite surprised to see that and needed to check the interwebbing to see what was what, and lo and behold - there’s an announcement right on the Google Enterprise blog.
I wonder if the partnership with Dell is any broader than the enterprise group. I always presumed that Google had it’s own hardware department building everything it needed for it’s datacenters and search appliances - with this starting to be outsourced to Dell I wonder if any datacenter hardware is also starting to come from Dell. The post on G’s blog suggested that the exterior shell of the appliances were only one of many customizations, perhaps Dell could be or become a supplier for some of the hardware going into the gaping maws of Googles datacenters.
The reason given by G to get rid of the hardware side to focus on the software seems like it could be just as applicable to their core businesses. I’ve installed a Google Mini at several clients now and think it’s a fantastic piece of hardware and software. I believe the appliances run linux and wonder if Dell’s recent support of linux had any relation to the Google deal (either cause or effect). Oh, well, I found it kind of interesting.
PS I think this is from an older deal between Dell and Google, but I just came across it - but check out the Dell cobranded Google personalized homepage.
