Well, may be not Dell

One of my predictions for 2006 was

"An infrastructure vendor - likely Dell or Sun (as it tries to redefine itself) - will introduce infrastructure outsourcing at aggressive, "utility" price points to cover a wide range of network, database, desktop and other services. In its hype cycle for outsourcing Gartner defines infrastructure outsourcing as one of the most mature. As systems management automation and offsite, shared labor models mature, an efficient services "supply chain" becomes much more viable."

Well, Kevin Rollins, CEO of Dell says in this Fortune Small Business article

"But I'm not convinced that we're going to move to a utility model for software or for hardware. A lot of customers don't find the economics of that particularly compelling."

But he is debating with Nick Carr, and may have just wanted to be contrarian...if he is serious Dell is missing a major opportunity to offer an alternative to the IBMs and the HPs and the EDSs who want to sell heavy labor content outsourcing models, versus the high automation and shared service models that "utility" models are calling for.