Disclaimer:
I am part of the Dell TechCenter Rockstar program and Dell has invited and paid for my trip to attend Dell World.
I am under no obligation to write about Dell World and these are simply my observations during the event.
First day of Dell World 2015 is at an end and what a day!
Even though some would say the first day and too short, I personally had no issues finding activities to attend.
The day kicked off by picking up my conference badge, very smooth and a nice short line.
A nice touch this year is a so called Loyalist system.
There are two options, this could be either your fourth (meaning you have been here in 2012, 2013, 2014 and now also 2015) or fifth year (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and now also 2015).
So what benefits would that include you ask?
First of all you will receive a nice ribbon (see above picture of my badge) plus a special pin.
You will also access to the Dell World Loyalty Lounge, which is basically a reserved seating area but with refreshments Wednesday and Thursday.
Last, but not least, you will have special VIP reserved prime seating at General Sessions.
Then roamed a bit around to see if I would run into any familiar faces and of course The Usual Suspects were here 🙂
Next up was visiting the famous Whisper Suite. The Whisper Suite is a showcase of not yet announced upcoming products and interesting ideas Dell are working on.
It never fails show off great stuff, but alas I will break a hefty NDA if I was to describe what I saw so I can only say: Very cool stuff is coming 🙂
After the Whisper Suite it was time for the press conference. It was a packed room!
Not surprisingly the very first question was about the DELL/EMC deal, fortunately Michael Dell had a big team with him on stage to answer questions:
Michael Dell explained that “Dell has a very different view point than HP.
Customers want less suppliers, not more!”
In my opinion, Dell is also heavily using PCs as a wedge to get into many companies and then up sell from there.
After the press conference I attended the Dell EMEA networking reception which was hosted at Max’s Wine Dive.
The reception was in the basement and both the food and snacks were really top notch. The acoustics of the room made it difficult to have group conversations but I was fortunate to have great talks with many fellow Scandinavians.
Last but not least the night ended with the Dell World party.
As previous years, the concept was food trucks (very Austin!) and this year John Mayer was bringing the music.
It was also possible to have a sneak peak at the Solutions Showcase with all the vendor booths ready. With the dim lightning it was difficult to get some good pictures, but there is a Back to the Future Delorean… very fitting with the October 21st date 🙂
Thank you for reading this and I hope you will check back tomorrow for my day 2 update.