WebProNews

Dell has given midsized businesses an upgrade in status with the launch of a new IT services plan called Platinum Plus. The service will also feature the capabilities of Google Earth Pro for real-time tracking of IT issues.

Dell halved the required number of servers a company had to have to qualify for the Platinum service, dropping the number from 200 to 100 servers. The change is aimed at the bulk of Dell's IT market, 85% of which comes from midsized business, education and government customers.

"This premium 7x24 service is the latest result of more than $200 million Dell has invested in enterprise service and support over the past several years," said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Product Group.

"Platinum Plus complements the recent and most comprehensive enhancements ever to our PowerEdge server portfolio to provide more reliability and global consistency for our business customers with mission-critical needs. Most importantly Platinum Plus will help IT managers transform their operations from costs centers to competitive advantages."

Two new features are available through the service:

Operations Performance Benchmarking: a patent-pending methodology allowing routine comparisons of IT performance metrics to historical results and similar environments. This helps IT managers cross-check performance against activity rates among various locations.

Enterprise Command Center Real-Time Tracking Window: a Web-enabled feature utilizing Google Earth Pro to create interactive 3D display of a "virtual Enterprise Command Center" to keep track of support activities. Dell says this capability is useful for support teams trying to identify and connect resources and open dispatches across multiple locations.
The army seems to like Platinum Plus. J.T. Lewis, Chief Information Systems and Support Division of the U.S. Army headquarters in Europe, says "the ability to benchmark our individual IT organizations gives us information we need to continually improve and proactively identify best practices that should be shared across the organization."

Dell has invested more than $200 million over the past several years in the processes developed for its various enterprise support services.

Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.