Dell Technologies’ executives exuded an upbeat outlook this week, claiming the company is uniquely positioned for growing opportunities in 5G, cloud-based IT services, and edge computing.

“Dell Technologies is in the middle of the edge and telecom transformation,” COO Jeff Clarke said during the company’s fourth-quarter fiscal 2021 earnings call. “We are on the cusp of widespread 5G connectivity driving real-time, automated, and intelligent outcomes at the edge. This will drive an estimated $700 billion in cumulative spend on the edge, on edge IT infrastructure, and data centers within the next decade."

The company banked $1.34  billion in net income on $26.1 billion in revenue during the quarter, representing a 9% year-over-year increase in revenue and 223% increase in profit.

Dell’s Client Solutions Group reported revenue of $13.8 billion, up 17% year over year. However sales were flat in its Infrastructure Solutions Group at $8.8 billion. Within that business unit, storage revenue was down 2% to $4.4 billion and servers and networking revenue jumped 3% to $4.4 billion. 

Server demand improved during the quarter and Dell was encouraged by growing sales in its mid-range storage business, Clarke said, adding that the company expects both businesses to continue to improve through 2021. He also noted that 20% of Dell’s PowerStore customers are new to Dell.

The company expects the second half of 2021 to be stronger than the first half, and forecasts full-year revenue to grow 3% to 5%.

Some of that optimism is fueled by Dell Technologies’ 2019 pledge to shift to cloud-delivered IT services that it rebranded last fall as Project Apex. 

“With Apex we are extending our long history of offering IT-as-a-service to deliver IT resources on demand, Dell managed infrastructure, enabling our customers to pay for only what they use, built on a foundation of trusted technology, all at scale,” Clarke said.

The company hasn’t said when that shift will be complete, but Clarke said the first of the Apex offers will hit the market in May, and additional offerings are slated to be released through the remainder of the year. 

“This foundational work sets us up to respond to accelerating customer needs and capture market momentum towards a hybrid distributed future filled by data and analytics,” he said.

“We are integrating and innovating on VMware and across our leading capabilities and partner ecosystems to create the automated, integrated infrastructure for 5G, and the data era that is [artificial intelligence and machine learning] enabled with intrinsic security throughout,” Clarke said of its subsidiary.

Those underlying trends, ongoing collaboration with VMware, and Dell’s ongoing shift to cloud-delivered IT services are increasingly encouraging on a broader front, according to Clarke. “That’s how we win at the edge, the next technology frontier. By extending our cloud model and ecosystem to the edge, we can provide a consistent approach to infrastructure, data applications, and security across the entire environment,” he said. 

“We are emerging in an advantaged position for the enormous opportunities ahead: technology delivered as a service, 5G, and edge computing,” Clarke concluded. “Technology is clearly front and center for the digital futures and Dell Technologies is uniquely positioned to win in the data era that is already underway.”