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Dell goes private: What's happened since

Dell goes private: What's happened since

Since Dell, the tech giant hard-hit by the downturn in its mainstay PC business, took its business private last year, the company has been focused on transforming from a product provider to a problem solver, its president for Asia told CNBC.

"It is no longer about a product. It is about a business problem," Amit Midha, Dell's president for Asia Pacific and Japan, told CNBC. "It's a different kind of engagement with our customers," he said.

"This week, I visited one of the stock exchanges in India. Their requirement is: how can I take my transaction time from 200 microseconds to 20 microseconds. So it is a higher level of business problem that we are engaging in," Midha said. Previously, Dell would ask customers what their data center requirements were and then provide the server storage, he said.

Read More Dell reveals growth following privatization

In September, Chairman and CEO Michael Dell secured shareholder approval for his $25 billion offer to buy and take the firm private after a drawn-out battle.

The company was once at the top of the PC business, boosted by its pioneering model of allowing customers to order custom-configured PCs online while working closely with suppliers to keep costs low.

But the company, which was getting most of its revenue from the PC business, ran into sharp headwinds as PC prices fell and its customers' tastes shifted toward tablets and smartphones.

Read More Tech spending to soar in 2014, driven by mobile data

Dell has no plans to de-emphasize or exit the PC segment, Midha said. "Corporate PCs continue to remain healthy," he said.

But he noted the definition of PC is changing.

"You may say it's the device that sits on the desk. The future strategy is: how can the data go with you wherever you are? Wherever you want to connect with your data, you can do that in a secure manner anytime, anywhere by any device," he said. "The PC as a whole work function that you interact with to get things done will be here to stay," he said, but noted the type of access will change.

Dell is focusing on four key areas to drive business ahead, he said.

The first two are cloud computing, or allowing customers to access stored data or services remotely, as well as BYOD, or bring your own device, he said.

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"Bring your own device is a trend where customers are empowering their employees to bring their device and yet be able to securely connect to the data centers," Midha said.

Offering big data services, including managing data generation and creating insights from it, and security are the other two key areas that Dell is focusing on, Midha said.

"Recently, we executed for one large high speed railway company (on) how they can analyze the data from hundreds of thousands of cameras (to see) where the high risk scenarios exist," he said. "We visualize that on a screen; we visualize that in a call center. So what big data can do is very interesting for the coming era," Midha said.

-By CNBC.Com's Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1



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