Guest post by Brian O' Toole, Consumption and Software Sales Leader at Dell Technologies

AI is rapidly reshaping the business landscape, making digital transformation not just a priority but a necessity for Irish organisations. Yet as companies look to harness its potential, they often find themselves navigating increasingly complex IT environments - a challenge that can feel overwhelming for businesses of all sizes.

Whether it's navigating cloud migration or staying secure and scaling AI projects or even just managing day-to-day IT workloads with limited resources, there's one thing we keep hearing from businesses and organisations alike is that 'we need to simplify'.

At Dell Technologies, we've seen these challenges firsthand - and that's why we're helping organisations embrace technology as-a-Service. Adopting this approach can help simplify operations, modernise IT infrastructure, and give businesses the agility they need to innovate at speed in the AI era.

A Fresh Approach to IT Management

Today, IT teams face a perfect storm of priorities from business leaders responding to external challenges. These priorities pressure IT leaders to do more with less as they get operations teams to innovate while addressing expanding regulatory frameworks around data.

All these pressures and potentially competing priorities increase the risk of IT decision sprawl that could solve problems in one area while adding complexity in others.

To help IT and business leaders navigate this environment and shift IT costs from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx), Dell APEX Cloud Platforms provide integrated infrastructure management that reduces multicloud complexity while strengthening security and governance.

APEX is a portfolio of fully integrated, turnkey systems that integrate Dell infrastructure, software and cloud operating stacks to deliver consistent multicloud operations. By extending cloud operating models to on-premises and edge environments, Dell APEX Cloud Platforms bridge the cloud divide by delivering consistent cloud operations everywhere.

With Dell APEX Cloud Platforms, you can:

Minimize multicloud costs and complexity in the cloud ecosystem of your choice.

Increase application value by accelerating productivity with familiar experiences that enable you to develop anywhere and deploy everywhere.

Improve security and governance by enforcing consistent cloud ecosystem management from cloud to edge and enhancing control with layered security. The shift to an As-a-Service approach gives businesses control without the chaos. Whether a scaling startup or an established large business planning to advance their Multicloud solutions or leverage AI-driven applications, they can get access to latest technology such as storage, servers, devices and cloud services - on demand with only the cost for what they use.

Enabling organisations to innovate in an AI and Multicloud era

For organisations, the shift to an as-a-service model is not just about simplifying IT systems, it's about ensuring they can unlock innovation and growth. Businesses can pay for what they use which aligns technology investment to actual value and usage. This approach is especially critical for costly infrastructure such as GPUs, servers, and storage which all require substantial investment. By spreading costs over time, organisations in Ireland can forge a cost-effective pathway to leveraging cutting-edge AI capabilities without being locked into long-term technology commitments.

In Ireland, we're seeing a growing appetite for more agile, scalable IT models, especially among businesses embracing AI, hybrid work, and Multicloud strategies. As the debate between public and private clouds are fading, Multicloud ecosystems are the future, and Dell APEX is leading the charge. With partnerships spanning hyper scalers like Microsoft, Red Hat, VMware, and Google Cloud, Dell APEX delivers simplified IT management across environments.

Dell APEX innovatio...