To the Cloud!

People are Missing the Point of Dell's Project Sputnik

As I read through the Dell Sputnik launch articles on Engadget and Arstechnica, I was surprised to see everyone focused on the price and screen resolution of the hardware in the comments. This really leads me to believe that the messaging around the launch isn't quite right and people are missing the point of the project. Ars at least mentions that the release of two open source tools, the profile and cloud launcher, as 'the fun part'. However, that is pretty much ignored by people commenting to the post. Unfortunately, Engadget treated the launch as just another laptop to review.

 The point of the project, according to Dell, is to deliver four things. The first two focus on delivering a great OS/HW experience with Ubuntu on an XPS 13. The remaining and more important goals are the cloud launcher and profiling tool. The project delivered beta versions of the tools on GitHub around the same time as the hardware.

 The tools enable what Dell is calling the 'client-to-cloud' path and is a logical step for the company. Dell is a Gold level supporter of the OpenStack project. The company can sell networking, storage and server gear to customers looking to build an OpenStack cloud and even provide deployment tools to make that easier. With these new tools customers can now quickly embrace the new operating model the cloud provides.

 I really would like to see more discussion around cloud enablement rather then hardware specs of the project.

I do not work for Dell or have any vested interest in seeing this product succeed.