The promise of the edge is all around us, or maybe it just seems that way at Dell Technologies World.

“One thing is clear, we have more power to do more good and create more human progress than at any time in our lives,” Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell said during a keynote address. “And as the edge expands across industries and cities with the rollout of 5G, the possibilities are limitless." 

Data is being created, moved, manipulated, and stored at astonishing levels that are only going to continue, if not accelerate, as everything from IoT to autonomous cars gain more momentum. And 2020's impact on technology will likely go on for years as COVID-19 caused companies to quickly adopt cloud services in a frenzy. But companies are moving on to the next thing, and that’s edge computing. 

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

And moving from the edge to consumption-based models, Dell Technologies (finally) unboxed its Apex portfolio of as-a-service offerings at the company’s annual conference. These include Apex Data Storage Services, Apex Cloud Services, Apex Custom Solutions, and Apex Console. “We've had a history of reinventing business models time and time again ... this is just the latest version of that,” Dell said. “The next step is everything as-a-service.”

Some of that optimism is fueled by Dell Technologies fulfilling its 2019 pledge to shift to cloud-delivered IT services with the formal launch of Apex. 

Apex merges different products and portfolios including Dell Technologies Cloud and the vendor’s consumption-based pricing portfolio Dell Technologies On Demand. This, the company argues, will provide customers with a more consistent experience for workloads across on-premises, edge, and public cloud environments. 

“As our conversation changes from speeds and feeds to experiences, insights, and outcomes, customers are asking for a modern way to consume technology, continuous delivery, and a cloud experience, and the appetite for as-a-service is growing,” Dell COO Jeff Clarke said. “The progress we've made is profound and there's more to come.”

Moving forward, all future as-a-service offerings from Dell will be Apex branded, he explained. This strategy capitalizes on growing demand for data and edge services, with IDC projecting that by 2024, more than 50% of all data infrastructure and more than 75% of edge infrastructure will be consumed as-a-service.

“This is a comprehensive retooling of the organization to lead with Apex,” Clarke added to CMO Allison Drew’s “rethink everything” comment. “It’s a mantra inside of our organization, one of the strategic tenants of the company, a mindset that everything we do is done through the lens of Apex.”

Dell is also promising a lot from edge computing.

“For us it's all about data and data being the major control point,” Jeff Boudreau, president and GM of Dell Technologies' Infrastructure Solutions Group, said. “And as we all know, data is growing and it's going to be just about everywhere, and that really provides us a unique opportunity at the edge.”

To that end, Dell Technologies revealed upgrades to the Dell EMC Streaming Data Platform (SDP) and a reference architecture designed to improve edge computing in manufacturing environments. The platform can ingest all data types, regardless of source or type, and transform that information into a unified platform that delivers faster insights. This allows enterprises to react in real time to changes in the edge environment, Varun Chhabra, VP of cloud and edge marketing at Dell Technologies, said during a briefing. 

The company also released what Chhabra described as the vendor’s first edge offering specifically designed for manufacturing, an industry that’s seen one of the largest investments in the edge space. The Dell Technologies Manufacturing Architecture was designed in partnership with software maker PTC and is focused on easing edge deployments in manufacturing.

“The race is on to the edge,” Clarke said. “We're going to bring a cloud operating environment to all aspects of our businesses. We think that is a very strategic opportunity for our company, a very significant growth opportunity, and we're going to bring this notion of simplicity, agility, and control to the edge.”

In parallel, the notoriously debt-laden vendor began hacking away at excess baggage in multi-billion-dollar chunks. Days before its annual user conference kicked off, Dell reached a $4 billion deal to sell Boomi, its cloud integration business, to Francisco Partners and TPG.

The company’s decision to sell Boomi followed less than a month after Dell and VMware announced a deal under which Dell will spin off its 81% stake in VMware and receive a dividend of between $9.3 billion and $9.7 billion that the company will use to pay down its debt.

“We believe that spin will drive additional growth opportunities for both Dell Technologies and VMware,” Dell said during a media Q&A. “Together we are the multi-cloud platform for digital transformation. So with this commercial agreement, nothing changes for at least the next five and a half years, and our joint momentum in roadmaps, in R&D innovation, all moves forward, full steam ahead.”